Govindini Murty (born 1974) is a U.S. Indian actress and writer. She has been published in The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, and is a member of the Alliance of Women Film Journalists and Indiewire's Criticwire. In 2013, Murty spoke at Social Media Week LA's "Power Women in Entertainment" roundtable.In recent years, Murty has focused in her writing on progressive women's rights, human rights, science, and technology. She has interviewed such film icons as Werner Herzog, and Stan Lee, as well as notable contemporary filmmakers and actors like Catherine Hardwicke, Lynn Shelton, Lake Bell, Steven Knight, and Shia LaBeouf, among others. In 2013 Murty was selected to attend a NASA Earth Science conference at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and has since written on the need to support NASA and promote space science in movies. Murty has also appeared on television to share her thoughts on Hollywood and popular culture. She has appeared on CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, AMC, BBC, and in 2007 she cohosted an episode of At the Movies With Ebert & Roeper on ABC.Murty is also a public speaker and independent film-maker. In 2013 she spoke at Social Media Week LA's "Power Women in Entertainment" roundtable, which promoted women's equality in media and entertainment. Prior to that, in 2004 Govindini cofounded with Jason Apuzzo the Liberty Film Festival, held in West Hollywood, California, which promoted films with alternative messages to mainstream Hollywood from 2004 to 2008.Murty is also the cofounder and coeditor with Jason Apuzzo of the on-line film magazine Libertas, established in January 2005, which has become a widely read and influential blog in the film world. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott called Libertas “insightful as well as provocative,” and LA Times film columnist Patrick Goldstein called Libertas “a must read.” In 2007, Libertas was voted one of the top three culture blogs on the internet during the 2007 Weblog Awards. The Liberty Film Festival and Libertas went on hiatus in the summer of 2008, with Libertas returning in its current form as Libertas Film Magazine (LFM) in the Spring of 2010. The new Libertas appears to have a different emphasis from that of its predecessor. Its stated purpose is to promote "films that celebrate freedom, democracy, and the dignity of the individual," and the new site routinely features short films, feature films, webisodes, trailers and reviews of what it terms "pro-freedom films" currently in theaters or on DVD.Murty continues to be active in the film festival world, covering the Sundance Film Festival, the Tribeca Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival and related events. In 2013 Murty served on the Whistler Film Festival narrative jury for the AWFJ EDA awards for outstanding achievements by women filmmakers, an event which received coverage in Variety when Melissa Leo personally offered to fund the winning woman filmmaker.
I wish that film makers today would stick to entertaining people and leave out the gratuitous political jabs.
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The Liberty Film Festival was founded in Los Angeles to celebrate free speech, individual rights, and democracy around the world, and was active from 2004 to 2008. The festival is currently on hiatus.
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A co-founder of the Liberty Film Festival, which from 2004 to 2008 held events in West Hollywood, California screening pro-freedom, pro-democracy films from around the world.
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Frequently writes film pieces for The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, and Libertas Film Magazine, and has also co-hosted ABC's "At the Movies," as well as appearing on AMC's "The Movie Club," CNN's "The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer," and such networks as MSNBC, BBC, Fox News, French Canal Plus, Japanese NHK, Dutch national TV, South Asia World, and other international networks.
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Govindini speaks English, French, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, and some Hindi and Malay. She has also studied Latin, and spoke Bengali and Manipuri as a child.
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She was named after the Hindu god Govinda. Her last name Murty is Sanskrit for "the image of the god."
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