Leena Pendharkar is an Emmy nominated, award-winning, director in film and television. Her work as a writer/director in independent film has been called, "heartfelt," "ground breaking," and "brave." She is passionate about telling cinematic stories that explore the human experience through compelling characters, and loves working collaboratively actors and other creatives.

Her most recent work is the television movie, A Date with Deception for Mar Vista/Lifetime, and two episodes of the kids’ show, Hello Jack!, for Apple TV+ for which she is nominated for a Children's and Family Emmy award. Leena is also an alum of the Warner Brothers, CBS, and Sony Diverse Directors programs.

She premiered her sophomore feature film, 20 Weeks, at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Based, in part, on her own story, it is about a couple that must make some tough decisions after their baby is diagnosed with a serious health condition at 20 weeks in utero.
 

20 Weeks played in festivals all over the country, won the Best Feature Film Award at the Maryland Film Festival, the Best Editing Award at the Tallgrass Film Festival, was selected as one of the best independent films of 2017 by Film Threat, and was described as an “intimate, compassionate take on abortion” by the Los Angeles Times. It was distributed in theaters and on Hulu, and is now available on a number of platforms.

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Other recent work includes the short film, Tiny Joy, which played in the Bentonville Film Festival and many others, and is now playing on Omeleto.  Her previous short film, Awaken, starring Parminder Nagra, Vee Kumari and Seamus Dever is also now playing on Omeleto. Her short film, Dandekar Makes a Sandwich, won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of LA, and was selected as a Vimeo Staff pick.
 

Raspberry Magic, Leena's first indie feature, a coming of age story about a young girl trying to hold her family together amidst financial hardships, played in many festivals, was distributed on Hulu and Starz, and is now available on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime and other platforms.

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Her feature script, Days with Dandekar, was selected for the FIND Script Lab and Tribeca All Access, and is actively being developed toward production. She also adapted Ursula Le Guin's novel, The Telling, for the screen, for producer Riz Virk.

Leena is an Associate Professor at Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television, where she teaches filmmaking. She has an MFA in Screenwriting/Playwriting from UC-Riverside Palm Desert, and is a member of the DGA. She is represented by Michael Kolodny at The Kaplan Stahler Literary Agency and Dannie Festa at World Builder Entertainment.​