Lipika Singh Darai

Lipika Singh Darai is an Indian filmmaker, film director and sound recordist from Odisha. She has won four National Film Awards.

Early life and education
Darai was born in Damasahi, Odisha, India to both parents from the Ho community.  She is based in Bhubaneswar.

Darai graduated from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in 2010, specialising in sound recording.

Recording
Darai started her career as a sound recordist for a Hindi short film Gaarud , receiving the 57th National Film Awards for audiography in 2010 in the non-fiction category when she was a student at FTII.

Direction
In 2012, Darai directed her debut film Eka Gacha Eka Maṇisha Eka Samudra (English: A Tree a Man a Sea) in Odia. In 2014, she directed Kankee O Saapo which won the National Film Awards in the narration/voice-over category. In 2015, she co-directed Some Stories Around Witches along with Indraneel Lahiri, a film about the humanitarian crisis surrounding the cases of witch-hunts. In 2017, she directed The Waterfall, receiving the National Film Awards. The Waterfall is a fictional film in Hindi and English about her school in the context of the growing distance between humans and nature. The film later was selected to be screened in 700 schools across India. In 2021, she directed Backstage. This Odia film depicts different marionette art forms of Odisha and the work of master rod-puppeteer Maguni Charan Kuanr and Rabana Chhaya puppeteer Gouranga Charan Dash, and folk arts in the context of the caste system in India.

Research
Darai was joined as an associate fellow for the City as Studio project of Centre for the Study of Developing Societies's Sarai Project.