Netflixs Swati Shetty Steps Down

Swati Shetty, director, international originals and acquisitions at Netflix, has stepped down from her role at the American streaming service. Shetty, who was one of the first to join Netflix’s India team, has worked at the over-the-top (OTT) video platform for 2 years and 5 months.

“We can confirm that Swati Shetty has decided to leave Netflix,” a statement from the company said. People close to Netflix said that with the increasing focus on India, there was a need for the role to be fulfilled out of the Mumbai office while Shetty wished to continue in Los Angeles.

Responsible for Netflix’s original film slate of late, Shetty has been closely associated with the OTT service’s feature film offerings this year. This includes romantic comedy Love per Square Foot produced by Ronnie Screwvala, Lust Stories, the anthology and most recently, Leena Yadav’s Rajma Chawal.

At an event for the Asia-Pacific region last month, Shetty announced a seven-film slate for 2019. There is Firebrand, co-produced with actor Priyanka Chopra’s Purple Pebble Productions, a contemporary take on love, sex and relationships starring Usha Jadhav, Sachin Khedekar and Rajeshwari Sachdev.

Netflix also makes its foray into original non-Hindi language content with Marathi film 15 August produced by Madhuri Dixit. Then there is Manav Kaul, Divya Dutta and Neena Gupta-starrer Music Teacher.

Among the projects Netflix has in production, there is Chopsticks starring Abhay Deol and Mithila Palkar produced by Ashwini Yardi, a period drama titled Bulbul produced along with Anushka Sharma’s Clean Slate Productions, Upstarts backed by filmmaker Raja Menon and an adaptation of best-selling novel Cobalt Blue directed by original author Sachin Kundalkar.

Besides, Netflix is bringing a Hollywood production called Hotel Mumbai starring Dev Patel and Anupam Kher which plays out in a mix of Punjabi, Urdu and Persian.

Previously, Shetty has served as president at Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Telfilms Ltd, executive director at the Indian arm of The Walt Disney Studios, associate director at the Disney ABC Television Group and manager at Star India Pvt Ltd.— Livemint