Arpita Kumar grew up in Lucknow, India in a home run by her gynecologist mother and several visiting and very pregnant relatives. Dinner conversations here were heated discussions about sexual politics and reproductive rights. These passionate female voices became inspiration for Kumar’s short films that have screened at numerous film festivals and venues including 2013 Festival de Cannes Short Film Corner, The Museum of Contemporary Arts (MOCA) in Los Angeles, the 3rd I South Asian International Film Festival in San Francisco, The Chashama Film Festival in New York City, The Bay Area Women in Film and Media Film Festival in San Francisco and The Columbia Gorge Film Festival in Portland and others. Kumar has also worked under Kirby Dick on the Oscar nominated and Sundance Audience Award winning documentary, The Invisible War, which exposed the epidemic of rape in the U.S. military. She has an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts. Her MFA thesis film, Sita, is a short narrative that exposes the underbelly of the commercial surrogacy industry through the personal narrative of an Indian maidservant. She also has a Masters in Comparative Literature from The University of Iowa, and a Bachelor in Film and Literature from Hampshire College.