Lydia Dean Pilcher, Producer / Director

Lydia Dean Pilcher is an American film and television producer and founder of Cine Mosaic, a leading independent production company with a wide range of talent and business partners in the US, Europe, India, Turkey, Africa and the Middle East.

Pilcher directed the 2020 IFC Films release, A Call to Spy, a character-driven thriller set in the French Resistance of World War II. The film depicts the true stories of three SOE agents, Vera Atkins (Stana Katic), Noor Inayat Khan (Radhika Apte), and Virginia Hall (Sarah Megan Thomas) in their quest to undermine the Nazis under Churchill’s plan to set France ablaze.

Also released in 2020 is the independent feature, Radium Girls, based on the true story of the 1925 factory watch dial painters in New Jersey. The film stars Joey King and Abby Quinn, and is co-directed by Pilcher and Ginny Mohler, with executive producer, Lily Tomlin.

Pilcher has produced over 40 feature films, including eleven films in a longstanding relationship with internationally acclaimed director Mira Nair. Most recently in 2020, they completed a six hour miniseries for BBC/Netflix, A Suitable Boy, based on the acclaimed novel by Vikram Seth. Before this they made the feature, Queen of Katwe, for The Walt Disney Company, starring Lupita Nyong'o and David Oyelowo, filmed in Uganda and South Africa.

In 2017, HBO Films premiered, the Cine Mosaic production of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, based on the NY Times best-selling book by Rebecca Skloot, starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne, directed by George C. Wolfe.

A two time Emmy Award winner and nominated in 2014 for an Academy Award for Cutie & The Boxer (Radius-TWC), directed by Zachary Heinzerling (winner of 2013 Sundance Directing Award), Pilcher has produced for many celebrated directors including Kathryn Bigelow, Wes Anderson, Wayne Wang, Gina Prince Bythewood, Alison Maclean, Ritesh Batra, George Wolfe, and Jane Anderson.

In 2014 Sony Pictures Classics released the Cine Mosaic production of The Lunchbox, directed by Ritesh Batra (winner of 2013 Critics Week Viewers Choice Award at Cannes). Cine Mosaic was the US partner in this Indian-French-German co-production.

Pilcher was nominated for Emmy, Golden Globe, and PGA Awards for producing HBO Films' You Don't Know Jack, directed by Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino, who won Emmy and Golden Globe Best Actor Awards for his role as Jack Kevorkian. Prior to that, she was nominated in for a Golden Globe Award for the HBO feature film, Iron Jawed Angels directed by Katja von Garnier, with Hilary Swank and Anjelica Huston, and Normal, directed by Jane Anderson with Tom Wilkinson and Jessica Lange.

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Nandhi Honwana, Research & Development Associate

Nandhi is a graduate of Bard College, where she developed a deep understanding of the power of narrative storytelling. She is inspired by the way storytelling activates social movements, advances cultural change, and allows misrepresented communities --particularly people of color and women-- to reclaim their narratives. She has also explored visual storytelling with a focus on experimental techniques in film and other digital media production.

In 2016, Nandhi worked at Mirabai Films based in New York, the international production company of acclaimed filmmaker, Mira Nair. She assisted the director during the post-production of Queen of Katwe (2016) starring Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo for Disney; and the development of Monsoon Wedding (2017) the musical stage performance, based on Nair’s award-winning movie. Recently, Nandhi assisted Nair on Amri, the upcoming film on the trailblazing modern Indian painter, Amrita Sher-Gil; and Locked Down Life, a short film produced for Apple India’s marketing campaign for the iPhone 12.

Other professional experience includes Social Impact facilitation, having worked as a Project Coordinator at Create Forward, a Digital Organizer at the Arab American Association of New York, and assisting in Marketing and Programs departments at the New York Women's Foundation, from 2017-2019. By assisting various NY-based facilitators, organizers, and activists through workshops, fundraisers, and protests, Nandhi has used empathy as a tool to facilitate systemic change. But most importantly, she learned to rely on stories as tools for healing and justice.