About Judy

JUDY SANDRA
Writer/Director   Songwriter   Producer
Judy Sandra is a director, writer, producer, author, and singer-songwriter. She has created the musical feature film Falling Like Stars, writing the original screenplay and all of the songs--music and lyrics. As a filmmaker, she has received 13 award nominations, including five best screenplay nominations.

In 2016, Judy made her directorial debut with the short film Angelito in Your Eye. The comedy / fantasy has received eight film award nominations from film festivals, including nominations for Best Comedy Short, Best Genre Film, and Best Actor. Angelito in Your Eye was the Official Selection of numerous film festivals in the US, United Kingdom, Denmark, Spain, and Belgium.

From a small child onwards, Judy has been a consummate artist, beginning with the visual arts. Leaving home at 17, she worked and put herself through college three times, studying art and writing.

She first attended Philadelphia College of Art (now The University of the Arts), where she majored in fine arts with a concentration in sculpture. After PCA she had a brief career in fashion, as a designer of hand-made and knit sweaters and accessory items, both designing and overseeing a production unit of 50 people in India.  Following an innate instinct for the written word, she returned to university, receiving a BA in English from Skidmore College and an MA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from The City College of New York, CUNY.

Judy wrote poetry, short stories, and two novels before she eventually turned to screenwriting and directing. She has adapted her second novel The Metal Girl into the feature film screenplay Metal Girl, for which she has received four Best Screenplay award nominations.

Judy is a member of International Women Working in Film (IWWF).  Her short films are distributed by the Boyish.Media channel at YouTube.

ABOUT  SONGWRITING

In addition to writing the screenplay for Falling Like Stars, Judy has written all of the songs for the film, including words and music.

Music has always been an important part of Judy’s artistic life, from childhood onwards. A self-taught musician, Judy plays piano. As a teenager she taught herself to play folk guitar and later on studied classical guitar. As a singer, Judy trained with professional vocalists in New York City, including classical (as a scholarship student at Brooklyn Conservatory of Music), pop, and Broadway styles. She was later introduced to Classical Hindustani vocal technique and still practices vocalizing with Sargam scales.

As a singer/songwriter, Judy sang and performed her original songs and produced two EP albums: Crossing The Border and east/west fusion. Escaping easy categorization, Judy’s music is an eclectic blend of western pop, classical, folk and jazz with the influences of Indian and other world music. A listener once described her as "Carole King meets Claude Debussy".

Judy performed with her band and as a soloist in such New York City singer/songwriter venues as Eureka Joe, The C-Note, and ACME Underground. She was featured in Art Nights at Café Europa, sponsored by the New York Dance & Arts Innovations (NYDAI), and was invited to perform at the Cape Fear Folk Festival, in Wilmington, NC. Judy performed with tabla player Radha Marinelli at Women in Eclectic Music at The Rotunda, University of Pennsylvania, sponsored by Foundation Arts. Her participation at the IMC 2003 Music Conference in Philadelphia included performing at the Immie Awards ceremony and showcasing at the conference. She also showcased at the Nashville New Music Conference (2NMC) and on the Songsalive! Nashville Tour.

JUDY on SONGWRITING
I can't change other people, and I can't change the world. I can only create from my music a rippling of positive vibrations into our common pool of life.