ABOUT
Gunjan Menon is an award-winning Producer-Director and National Geographic Storytelling Explorer specialising in impact-driven natural history and conservation documentaries.
She is the co-founder and CEO of Beyond Premieres, a Vancouver-based creative studio focused on films at the intersection of biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, and Indigenous stewardship. Her work examines human–wildlife relationships through an ecofeminist lens and has been broadcast on Nat Geo Wild, Disney+, Hulu, ABC, PBS, BBC Earth, Amazon Prime, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and Roundglass Sustain. Selected titles she has worked on include Underdogs (Nat Geo Wild), Sentient (Disney+), The Letter (PBS), The Firefox Guardian (Seeker/ShortsTV), and On the Brink (Discovery/Animal Planet).
Beyond her role as a Field Director, she has created independent films that have earned over 50 laurels across 20 countries. Gunjan is the recipient of the Jackson Wild Rising Star Award (2020), is a Re:Generation Climate Leader supported by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, and was named to The Explorers Club EC50 in 2025 as one of the “50 People Changing the World That the World Should Know About.” She has also been featured in Rebel Girls: Animal Allies, a globally bestselling anthology for young readers.
She currently serves on the Board for DOC Northwest (Canada) and on the Advisory Councils of Jackson Wild and the Red Panda Network. Her film Wings of Hope received the UN World Wildlife Day Audience Award at Jackson Wild and played a key role in highlighting Menar, Rajasthan, as a model for community-led ecotourism, contributing to the designation of Menar Lake as a Ramsar Site, a Wetland of international importance.
Her latest works have been selected for development labs and pitching forums, including Hot Docs Deal Maker, DocEdge Kolkata, Green Stories Lab, DOC Northwest’s Breakthrough Program, and the Netflix–BANFF Diversity of Voices Initiative. She has received film grant support from the National Geographic Society–John Templeton Foundation, Bitchitra Collective, and Royal Enfield Social Mission.
Gunjan’s work has taken her to the remotest corners — trekking at 12,000 feet in the Himalayan bamboo forests filming red pandas, traversing rainforests looking for endangered purple frogs and, among others, searching for extremely rare turtles in the mighty Brahmaputra. But sometimes, even filming engaging stories about bats in her backyard makes her happy. She also volunteers as a wildlife rehabber and strives to shift the limelight to lesser-known species and habitats. She authored a book for The Habitats Trust, highlighting grassroots conservationists and frontline warriors in India.
BBC Earth's Facebook Watch show, 'Close Encounters', featured her in their August 2021 episode, and her conservation storytelling work has been covered in the Times of India, Sanctuary Asia, several podcasts, and magazines. She was the narrator for BBC’s impact campaign film pillars to support their landmark series, Frozen Planet II. Gunjan is also a TEDx Speaker, 'Girls Who Click' partner photographer, leading workshops and seminars worldwide for emerging filmmakers on conservation storytelling and cinematography. She has been invited as a mainstage speaker to National Geographic Society’s Storytelling Summit 2023 in Washington DC, Jackson Wild in Austria, NEWF Congress in South Africa, and India Today Conclave in 2021 to discuss storytelling for change, climate mental health, and the state of environmental affairs in India. She has also been invited as a guest lecturer to schools and colleges globally.
Committed to making filmmaking more accessible, Gunjan mentors emerging creators and scientists and leads workshops on photography, storytelling, and science communication through organizations such as NEWF in Africa, Green Hub in India, and Girls Who Click. She holds a Master’s degree in Wildlife Filmmaking from UWE Bristol in collaboration with the BBC Natural History Unit, and continues to push the boundaries of conservation storytelling, using film to amplify scientific impact, inform policy, and foster deeper public empathy for the natural world.
