2025 JUROR
Nainita Desai
Composer // Film, TV + Games
Nainita Desai is an Emmy-winning composer with two additional nominations, and a 2021 RTS and World Soundtrack Award winner for Discovery of the Year. Her accolades include being a double BIFA, Critics Choice, and Cinema Eye Honors nominee, as well as a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit and IFMCA Breakthrough Composer of the Year. Empire Magazine named her one of the Top 5 Composers to Watch for 2022, and she won the Women in Film & TV Creative Technology Award in the same year.
In 2024, Nainita’s projects include the Sundance feature Nocturnes, the AMC fantasy series Nautilus, ITV drama The Tower, and the EA video game Tales of Kenzera: Zau. Her score for the latter garnered many accolades and award nominations, including Outstanding Original Score for Interactive Media at the 2025 SCL Awards; Video Game Score of the Year at the 2025 ASCAP Composers’ Choice Awards; as well as Best Music for an Indie Game, Best Original Soundtrack Album, and Music of the Year at 2025’s G.A.N.G Awards. Her work on Netflix’s 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible earned her a Primetime Emmy nomination, and her score for A24/Netflix’s The Deepest Breath brought her multiple award nominations. Other notable credits include the Oscar-nominated documentary For Sama, the Sundance-winning film The Reason I Jump, and the Emmy-nominated score for Body Parts. In addition to film and television, she has also worked on video games such as Sam Barlow’s Immortality, Telling Lies, and Activision’s Call of Duty Modern Warfare III.
Nainita has scored major projects such as Apple TV+’s Earthsounds, Hulu’s The Contestant, and the BBC/Nat Geo series Ocean Xplorers. With upcoming work for Sony Interactive and major documentary series for Netflix, Universal, and National Geographic, she continues to push boundaries in music. Having started her career in sound design and music engineering, Nainita’s work blends orchestral scores with custom instruments, electronics, and experimental sound design, creating deeply immersive soundscapes.
