Sunetra Sarker - Founder
Having worked as an actor for over 30 years, with her first role as schoolgirl Nisha Batra in the legendary Channel 4 soap opera Brookside, to her RTS award winning role playing Kaneez Paracha in Ackley Bridge, Sunetra has played a variety of roles since 1988 on stage, radio, & film but mainly on television. She is a household face appearing on several popular non scripted formats such as Strictly and is also a regular panellist on ITVs Loose Women. Sunetra has aslo produced her own 'Selfcare with Sunetra' podcast.
Adding to this, as a member of BAFTA, Sunetra was chosen to be one of five mentors for the selected BAFTA Elevate candidates in 2020. Sunetra sits on BAFTA and RTS Juries and is called upon as a leading voice in the British Asian Actors landscape and she remains the only British Indian Liverpudlian actor on British TV and wishes to progress the industry with her vast knowledge of working in television.
Sunetra has been nominated for various awards over the years and most recently won the RTS Yorkshire Best Actor 2022 and 2019 Best TV Character at the Asian Media Awards for her portrayal of Dinner Lady; Kaneez Paracha - her most courageous role to date portraying a working class, Pakistani single mother with a mission - to find her voice and to be heard.
From comedies such as Cold Feet, G'wed, Ideal and The Smoking Room, to being a regular cast member in regular dramas, BBC Casualty, Channel 4s No Angels , Channel 5s Desperate Measures and ITVs Professor T to a vast array of character roles in mainstream dramas such as Informer, Broadchurch, The Bay, Safe House, Responder and soon to be released Playing Nice, Sunetra has maintained a constant presence on our TV screens since 1988. Sunetra also directed episodes of Casualty during her ten years working on the iconic British medical drama and was asked back to produce a block of episodes in 2021.
When she left school in Liverpool, Sunetra decided not to go to Drama School (despite being offered a place at RADA) but rather to carry on her acting alongside her academic studies, gaining a BSc Degree in Information Systems for Business at Brunel University. This education would eventually come to help her as she set up her own production company in 2019. With her vast experience of working in television, Sunetra set up Etcetera Sunetra Productions with a view to creating television and film whilst promoting new and undiscovered writing talent. She was an Associate Producer at The Forge and currently has one television drama series in development with BBC Studios, a comedy in development with Sky Studios and a co pro with Neal Street.
Sunetra is also a Consultant Producer for 2 external production companies and wants to use her 30+ years of TV knowledge and experience to add value to new emerging, diverse and female projects that have recently been given the opportunities and platforms to progress.
