Taira Malaney

Roles: Director

Taira Malaney is an independent filmmaker from Goa, India. She received her BA in Psychology in 2013 at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and then returned to India to teach marine conservation in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Here, she hosted regular film screenings to teach students about the marine world. Their positive response to this teaching method gave her insight into the power of film. Since then, she has been driven by the idea that film can be used as a tool to educate and inspire change. After completing a documentary film course at the San Francisco School of Digital Filmmaking in 2016, Taira returned to India and founded Emaho Films. Emaho is a creative video agency that produces short films intended to fascinate, evoke and transform. These are stories of individuals, NGOs and businesses that are having a transformative impact on our world – be it environment, health or social justice. Emaho is currently working on a five-part documentary series featuring ‘environmental heroes’ whose livelihoods have an immense and lasting impact on ecosystems or species in India. The intention is to encourage our youth to reflect about their abilities to benefit nature, and make choices to preserve it. The first film, A Living Legacy, was shot in late 2016. The story shares an intimate glimpse into the world of a couple who dedicated their life towards protecting the disappearing forests of the country by creating a 300-acre private wildlife sanctuary in the Western Ghats of India. It was screened at environmental film festivals in USA, Australia, Canada, and Europe and will be released in India in July. The Call of Pashmina is the second film in the series.