Nainita Desai

Nainita Desai is an Emmy-winning composer whose genre-spanning scores have made her a leading voice in contemporary screen music.  She has amassed numerous awards and nominations, including an Emmy for The Reason I Jump, RTS Craft, IFMCA, SCL, and World Soundtrack Award Discovery of the Year wins, alongside multiple Ivor Novello, BIFA, Critics’ Choice, and Cinema Eye Honors nominations.  In 2025 she won ASCAP’s top video game prize for EA’a acclaimed Tales of Kenzera: Zau, while her title theme for Disney+/AMC’s fantasy series Nautilus earned a Television Theme of the Year nomination.

Her recent work spans high-profile TV dramas, feature documentaries, and AAA games, including Nautilus, all three seasons of ITV’s The Tower, and Tales of Kenzera: Zau.  On the festival circuit she is celebrated for the Sundance craft-winning Nocturnes (Cinema Eye nominee) and Misfits/Hulu’s The Contestant.

Other credits include BBC One’s Crossfire, Sky’s Funny Woman, the StudioCanal feature Something in the Water, and landmark natural history series’ The Wild Ones, Earthsounds, James Cameron’s OceanXplorers, Secrets of the Penguins, and Predators.

Desai’s acclaimed documentary work includes the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA/Cannes-winning For Sama, Netflix’s 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible (Primetime Emmy nomination), Body Parts (Emmy nomination), and A24/Netflix’s The Deepest Breath.  She has scored multiple #1 Netflix documentaries, from American Murder: The Family Next Door to What Jennifer Did.

Her music has been performed by leading orchestras at festivals including Film Music Krakow, WSA Ghent, MOSMA Malaga, the Camille Awards in Paris, and SXSW London 2025.

Other projects include her solo album ‘Tessellation’, created for a large-scale permanent light installation in California.  In games and interactive storytelling, she is celebrated for her collaborations with Sam Barlow on BAFTA-winning Telling Lies and Immortality, and is currently scoring a multi-year international installation, alongside new AAA franchises.

Born in London to Indian parents, Desai’s eclectic upbringing saw her study sitar, piano, guitar, tabla, violin, and voice before earning a mathematics degree and training in sound design at the National Film and Television School.  She worked on films for Bernardo Bertolucci and Werner Herzog and as an assistant engineer for Peter Gabriel.  Her emotionally immersive scores fuse custom-built instruments, vintage synths, found sounds, and global influences into unique sonic worlds rooted in the emotional truth of the story.