Ben Rekhi

NRI, Ben Rekhi, 25, grew up in California and made his first featurette at 17. Rekhi graduated from the NYU School of Film and Television, where he directed, shot, and produced several award winning shorts, including The Waste Project, which won the Best Actor prize at the First Run Festival, and Dirty Laundry, for which he received a Post Production Grant from Warner Bros. Pictures. He says his big break was a camera internship under d.p. Roger Deakins on O Brother, Where Art Thou? which led to Brother star George Clooney hiring him to shoot making-of footage on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. The Brother set was also where Rekhi met eventual Waterborne producers Smriti Mundhra, who co-produced Bomb, and Taylor Phillips.

Rekhi's music video for Interscope Record's band Dredg (for the song ‘Of the Room’) was voted number one on the Fuse TV Network program Oven Fresh, with over thirty million viewers. Read More...

Ben got his first break in the film industry working on the set of the Coen Brothers’ cult classic O Brother, Where Art Thou? as a camera intern under world-renowned cinematographer Roger Deakins, ASC. He was subsequently hired by O Brother star George Clooney to shoot the behind-the-scenes documentary for Clooney’s directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind starring Julia Roberts, Drew Barrymore, and Sam Rockwell.

Rekhi is represented by ICM and Mosaic Media Group, and is currently producing the independent 35mm comedy CarBabes, as well as developing the screenplay for Waste, an inside look at the harsh and often dangerous lives of NYC garbage men.

In Los Angeles, Rekhi interned in development, production, and management at New Line Cinema, Sony Pictures, and MGM before forming his own production company, Drops Entertainment, under which he produced his first film, Bomb the System.

The independent 35mm feature, which stars Mark Webber (Storytelling, Broken Flowers) and was cut by award-winning editor Jay Rabinowitz (8 Mile, Requiem for a Dream), earned Ben a nomination for Best First Feature for the prestigious 2004 Independent Spirit Award. Rekhi also co-managed the sale and distribution of the picture in the U.S. to Palm Pictures for it’s 2005 theatrical release and to Japan and Australia as well.

Rekhi’s feature film directorial debut, Waterborne, was the recipient of the Special Audience Award at SXSW. The story centers around a fictional terrorist attack on the water supply of LA and continues to win accolades at festivals around the world, with distribution plans set for release in early 2006.