Karan Tejpal

Karan Tejpal grew up bouncing from city to city, thanks to his dad being in the army, so he’s kinda lived all over India. Born in Delhi, but honestly, he might as well be from everywhere. He ended up at Mayo College in Ajmer, which is this old-school all-boys boarding place—think more horse polo than textbooks, and that’s exactly what he did. Dude basically ditched the academic path and went all-in on polo, playing in India, New Zealand, and South Africa. Wild, right? But, as fate loves to mess with plans, he didn’t stick to horses forever. The whole movie biz started calling his name—probably because film sets are just as unpredictable as polo fields, if we’re being real. So, he dove in, working under some of the top names in Bollywood—Rajkumar Hirani, Rakeysh Mehra, Mrighdeep Lamba, and a bunch more—bouncing between movie sets and ad shoots, soaking up all that chaotic energy. All that traveling and rubbing elbows with folks from every corner of the country? It bled right into his filmmaking style. Eventually, he sharpened his craft at the New York Film Academy, then came back and started to carve out his own path in indie cinema. Tejpal’s stories don’t sugarcoat anything—they dig into the gritty mess of society, showing moments of real kindness slapped up against raw brutality. His debut feature, Stolen, even landed a world premiere at Venice, which, let’s be honest, is no small potatoes. Oh, and if you’re into screenwriting, he’s got nods from Sundance and the NFDC. Dude’s just getting started.