Meet Molly Karna | Writer & Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Molly Karna and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Molly, how do you think about risk?
Taking risks has shaped the entirety of my film career. In October 2018, I arrived in Mumbai with four heavy suitcases. To the disbelief of my friends and family, I just taken a huge risk – I had just quit a stable, well-paying job at a prestigious consulting firm in New York so that I could move back to Mumbai to work as a filmmaker.

Three years earlier, I had been living there as a Fulbright Scholar, helping to educate young mothers living in slums about prenatal care. After spending the next few years writing scripts about these experiences during my free time outside of consulting work, I began collaborating with a producer who encouraged me to move back to Mumbai to work on bringing these scripts to fruition as films. However, as soon as I shifted my entire life to another continent, our collaboration fell through.

At this stage, I could return to New York and find another corporate job while mapping out my next steps. Or, I could stay in Mumbai and continue working towards making films. I chose the latter, and my experiences have shaped the storyteller I became as well as the stories I have encountered.

Taking risks has been imperative to my evolution as both a filmmaker and a person. I know firsthand that failure often looms ahead as a possibility when taking a risk, but that it also provides a critical opportunity for growth, resilience, and creativity in a field as unpredictable as the arts.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Much of my work as a filmmaker is grounded in the stories and people I know directly. In recent years, what has most inspired me are projects at the nexus of nonfiction and fiction. The most exciting part of storytelling with a hybrid fiction and nonfiction lens is identifying stories I’ve never seen on screen, especially those from marginalized communities, and collaborating with those portrayed to shape their own narrative.

I started out my career as a research scientist and engineer and eventually moved into public health. While these are vastly different disciplines than film, the most enriching part of my work in each field was talking with people and learning their stories – whether for the purpose of surveys, data collection, or script research. Pivoting my work to take on the hybrid fiction/nonfiction lens has allowed me to call back skills in each of my previous jobs. While it is a challenging genre, requiring working outside the comfort of a studio setting and with non-professional actors, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to show characters rarely represented on screen.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
One of my favorite ways to spend time with friends in LA is picnicking outside. I would pack a picnic and take a friend to Echo Park, Barnsdall Art Park, or even Venice Beach, hoping to also snag some elote from a street vendor. I also love the endless supply of art in the city, and LACMA, MOCA, and the California African American Museum are some of my favorite spots to visit, so we’d stop at one of those. And of course, eating around the city has been one of the most important ways I have experienced it. Our menu would include galbi in Ktown, udon in Little Tokyo, pupusas in Pico Union, and of course al pastor tacos from my favorite corner stand on 3rd and Benton.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
So many people have played a huge role in where I am now. I would never have gotten to study film without the support of my parents, brother, and sister in-law who have championed me through all the stages of my career. My friends have also been a huge support, involving themselves in my work from a project’s inception through all its iterations – giving feedback, encouraging me, and serving as sounding boards for all my ideas. I am lucky to have had incredible mentors in my field, including Abi Varghese, Datta Dave, Terrie Samundra, and Miguel Silveira, who have helped me navigate the film industry as a South Asian woman.

But the person I’d like to call out especially is my partner, Alex Alvarez. He has known me since my filmmaking career was a dream that I debated whether to pursue. His encouragement, support, and endless hours of unpaid labor have bolstered me to forge a path in filmmaking in which I’m excited to continue.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mollykarna/

Image Credits
Tammy Premchan