Maya Churi was born and raised in Philadelphia to an Indian father and an Argentine mother. She graduated with a BFA in Film from NYU and a MFA as an Annenberg Fellow from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Churi has worked in independent film production, as a distribution manager for an independent film distributor and as a writer and editor for indieWIRE. As a filmmaker, her projects include Letters From Homeroom which was funded by the Creative Capital Foundation and Forest Grove which screened at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival in the Online section. A screenplay adaptation of Forest Grove was selected to be a part of the 2009 Sundance Producers Lab.

Grants and awards
2005 Seoul Net Fest, Winner Best Web Work
2003 New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Award
2001 Jerome Foundation, Media Arts Award
2000 Creative Capital Grant, Emerging Fields
1998 MacDowell Colony Fellow
1995 Helena Rubenstein Scholar, New York University