By Jessica Herndon
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. While we can learn a lot about the filmmakers from the 2025 Sundance Film Festival through the art that these storytellers share with us, there’s always more we can learn about them as people. We decided to get to the bottom of those artistic wells with our ongoing series: Give Me the Backstory!
In a world teetering on the edge of collapse, how do we hold onto hope — or humor? With Didn’t Die, Meera Menon tackles this question with biting humor and bone-deep dread, delivering a zombie thriller that’s as much about survival as it is about connection. Premiering in the Midnight section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, the film follows Vinita (Kiran Deol), a podcast host who attempts to mask her unraveling nerve on her broadcast in the apocalypse overrun by “biters.”
Menon’s second Sundance Film Festival premiere builds on the poignant storytelling she delivered in Equity (2016), a corporate drama that shattered glass ceilings with its portrayal of women navigating Wall Street power dynamics. Her return to the Festival brings homage to the work of George A. Romero by using the monster genre as a lens to explore societal collapse with biting humor and raw vulnerability. As Menon explains, her film is for “people looking for an artful and interesting take in the genre, but really anyone that is dealing with grief.”
Beyond the big screen, Menon has become a force in television, directing episodes of shows like Ms. Marvel, Westworld, and The Walking Dead. With Didn’t Die, she brings her savvy sensibility to the big screen once more, crafting a low-budget horror that balances poignant drama and dark satire in a film that asks us to consider how we can find meaning, connection, and even humor in the face of annihilation.
Below, Menon discusses how she discovered her film set was haunted, what it took to make her film on the “bare minimum,” and the artists she looks to for inspiration.
What was the biggest inspiration behind Didn’t Die?
There were many sparks of inspiration to make this film — my restlessness to make another feature and curiosity as to whether I could be scrappy about it again, a love of the zombie genre born out of directing episodes of The Walking Dead, and a genuine question in my heart as a new mother: wondering how to look forward in the face of one global catastrophe after another.
Films are lasting artistic legacies. What do you want yours to say?
That loss is inevitable, as is the new life born within it.
Tell us an anecdote about casting or working with your actors.
I cast this movie with people who have been calling out to me in some way to collaborate, either literally or through a feeling. They were all a text message away. I didn’t go through any reps. We lived in the same house we shot in. I would often sit in a room and plan a scene and just text them to come downstairs when I was ready to film. Some of the cast has never been on camera before. [They were] just family friends I knew had the charisma to pull it off and would be down to make it in the guerrilla spirit the process would require.
What was your favorite part of making Didn’t Die? Memories from the process?
There are so many memories, but one that tops them all is the haunting we experienced. The attic in one of the homes we were staying in was haunted — the folks staying in that house heard footsteps there at night. We were warned about this by the owners. We filmed a scene in that attic, and that night, there was a car accident in front of this house — a drunk driver crashed into the fence where hours before, we had been filming another scene. And from that moment on, we were convinced that we unleashed something both onto the film and the preceding year. 2023 was pretty tough for all of us — parents dying, Kiran got assaulted on the street, Vishal [Vijayakumar’s] mother got hit by a car. To come here on the other side of this process and premiere at Sundance is a much-needed embrace after a long haul.
What was a big challenge you faced while making Didn’t Die?
Resources. We made this film for the bare minimum you can make a film — picking up shots in our backyard, asking favors of every friend we have.
Why does this story need to be told now?
Because it feels like, in this world, we are facing loss after loss. I was also inspired by Viktor E. Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning. Finding meaning in a pulverized world is hard, especially if you are young. But really, at any age.
Tell us why and how you got into filmmaking.
So many reasons. I love movies. I love drama. But I got permission to do it internally by seeing my father’s love and passion for movies. He came to this country in the 1970s and saw there was nowhere to watch movies from Kerala, his home state in India. So, he organized screenings and found a community of hundreds of immigrants from Kerala [and] became their touchstone for the movies from back home. He befriended actors and directors and showed me these are real people who do this for a living. His community became a source of inspiration for me, and that is why filmmaking is about family. He put my sister in the first movie he produced — also made in a run-and-gun style — and now I have put my daughter in this one. I have always found myself most at home in the company of a band of artists just trying to put on a show.
Why is filmmaking important to you? Why is it important to the world?
Filmmaking is important to me because I understand it. Ever since I learned Final Cut Pro, I knew this was a medium I could speak in. I don’t know if it’s important to the world. Sometimes I think the need to be entertained has destroyed everything. But I also know it’s the only thing [with which] I’ve ever been able to relate to people.
If you weren’t a filmmaker, what would you be doing?
Probably working in politics, which is clearly just another branch of the entertainment industry.
What is something all filmmakers should keep in mind in order to become better cinematic storytellers?
People never really say what they are thinking, but you can show what they are thinking, and that is a uniquely cinematic task.
Who are your creative heroes?
Eva Hesse, Ana Mendieta, and Mark Rothko, in terms of artists. Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh, Lynn Shelton, George Romero, Coppola, and Beyoncé, obviously.
What was the last thing you saw that you wish you made?
The Substance. Prior to that, it was Atlantics.
Which of your personal characteristics contributes most to your success as a storyteller?
Patience.
Tell us about your history with Sundance Institute. When was the first time you engaged with us? Why did you want your film to premiere with us?
My second film, Equity, premiered there in 2016. Then I was [at the Episodic] Lab in 2018. The past decade of my career has contained many experiences on set, largely on TV shows. Sundance is a place that has made me feel like a filmmaker time and time again. I can’t express enough how important that has been for my sense of self and my love of filmmaking.
Who was the first person you told when you learned you got into the Sundance Film Festival?
Paul, my husband, who I wrote and shot the film with. The film is as much his as it is mine, and second to the birth of our daughter, that phone call was the best moment of our married lives.
What’s your favorite film that has come from the Sundance Institute or Festival?
An impossible question to name one. sex, lies, and videotape was a really crucial movie for me to understand how the form can be broken. Also, Soderbergh is a figure who swings between indies and studio films. But more recently, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.
