Sunil Pappu

screenwriter-producer

QUARTERFINALIST - 2020 & 2022

SPECIAL JURY AWARD 2022

OFFICIAL SELECTION

An award-winning screenwriter-producer, Sunil is passionate about writing stories with strong women who take the uncharted path.

Raised by matriarchs in a joint family and sent off to a boarding school at the tender age of eight, he always found great comfort in escaping into the realm of stories. Shaped by strong women in his own life who encouraged him to take the unconventional route - from engineering at IIT to a master’s in TV and Film; from working as a TV exec to becoming a full-time screenwriter.

Now, he writes intricate, suspenseful thrillers based on true events with female leads in unconventional roles and loves to give them twist endings. Having spent more than a decade in TV as an exec developing and greenlighting more than 100 hours of fiction and non-fiction content, scanning news stories and doing research comes naturally to him.

His screenplays and TV shows, including the features "FAKE CALL," “THE INFIDEL BRIDE” and "INVISIBLE GRAVES" and, TV Pilot “THE URBAN NAXAL,” have been finalists in several international screenwriting contests.

He is a veteran TV executive producer with two decades of crafting stories for international brands like National Geographic, Sony Entertainment, ESPN and MTV.

In 2014, he started his own company Orchid Room Productions which he envisioned as a multi-ethnic writer's room. He produced his first short film under The Kyo Project (the social impact arm) titled "ALMOST NORMAL"

He has a bachelor’s in engineering from IIT, Kharagpur, a master’s in TV and Film from Newhouse School, Syracuse, New York and a master screenwriter certificate from ScreenwritingU.

He is also a member of the Screenwriters Association, Mumbai, since 2020.

When he's not cooking up stories, he loves to sing karaoke, strum his guitar and bake sourdough pizzas for his preschool boys!

LOVECODED

Contained Sci-Fi Thriller | 1-hr Serial

In a totalitarian society of algorithmic marriages, a rogue coder uncovers a hidden flaw in the matchmaking system, plunging her into a deadly game of cat-and-mouse to save forbidden love, unravelling a hidden rebellion and risking everything to save her true love from a sinister architect who uses synthetic hearts to manipulate emotions.

CYBER COP

Thriller | 1-hr Serial

A criminal profiler building a criminal database solves cold cases and stumbles upon a deadly conspiracy that puts his life at risk and the entire city on a terror alert.

1971 SILENT WAR

War Thriller | 120 mins

Can a disgraced female radio operator overcome her fear of water to intercept a top-secret sea cable to stop a genocide?

SIGNALS

Contained Sci-Fi Horror | 100 mins

A family with no digital footprint stranded in a mega mall in town, must remain blindfolded to survive, where deaf light-sensitive mysterious species scan eyes and mimic their memories to lure and kill.

HAWALA LEDGER

Heist Thriller | 1-Hour Serial

A math prodigy joins a heist to penetrate an underground banking system to steal an ancient ledger protected by a secret society that controls the financial world.

FAKE CALL

Thriller | 114 mins | RUNNER-UP @ ISC - JAIPUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024

An interpreter for the Indian Army in Afghanistan returns to India as a language trainer at a call centre to infiltrate a billion-dollar fake calls scam to expose the secret cartel behind it.

RUSSIAN SNIPER

Action Thriller | 95 mins

A female CIA sleeper agent escapes the Russian prison to stop a KGB Commander from secretly launching a tactical nuclear warhead to win the war on Ukraine.

THE INFIDEL BRIDE

Thriller | 107 mins | QUARTER FINALIST @ BIG BREAK 2022

A pregnant British reporter goes undercover as an ISIS bride to find her missing husband who is now an infamous ISIS fighter known for his beheadings of Infidels.

INVISIBLE GRAVES

Thriller | 115 mins | SPECIAL JURY AWARD @ ISC - JAIPUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022

A rookie journalist working on a story of missing persons accidentally discovers a covert operation within the Anti-Terror Squad that turns their probe into a suicide mission.

BORN IN SPACE

Contained Sci-Fi Thriller | 111 mins

A space experimental mission in 2025 goes horribly wrong when the ISS is destroyed and, the sole survivor is a woman in labor, hurtling through space in a cargo ship, 400 Kms above the earth.

THE URBAN NAXAL

Thriller | 1-hr Serial | QUARTERFINALIST @ BIG BREAK 2020 | | JURY SELECTION @ ISC - JAIPUR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022

A civil engineering professor, secretly plots to blow up sensitive government sites, to become a top Naxal recruit in the city.

GRADES, GANJA & GUNS

Comedy Thriller | 1/2-Hour Serial

A misfit undergraduate engineering student unwittingly forays into the mafia world to become the don’s son-in-law.