Born and raised in India, Adelkar is a former electrical engineer who earned her MFA in screenwriting & directing at Columbia  where she was the recipient of the Breaking Barriers Award.

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She was selected as a Project Involve  fellow by FILM INDEPENDENT & was a finalist for Tribeca's THROUGH HER LENS program. 

Anil won the Best Film Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival in 2008 with his first short film MANJHA, later chosen by acclaimed director Danny Boyle as a special feature for the Blu-Ray release of his Academy Award- winning film SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. TUMBBAD is his debut feature.

Danny Ben-Moshe is one of Australia’s leading documentary filmmakers. He won the country’s top documentary prize, the Walkley Award, for his film CODE OF SILENCE. Danny’s latest film, MY MOTHER’S LOST CHILDREN, is an epic family saga told across five continents and six decades, made for for BBC Storyville. As a vegetarian, Danny nominates India as his favourite never go hungry film shoot location.

Sanjna Bharadwaj prides herself on being able to eat cereal with milk in a moving car. She enjoys finding humor in most things as well as telling stories about growing up in the Silicon Valley. Currently, you can find her hunched over her desk storyboarding for Pixar Animation Studios. She recently graduated from CalArts with a BFA in Character Animation.

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Sanjna's satirical sci-fi comedy, LOCAL MIDDLE SCHOOLER, premiered at SXSW.

Tanuja Chandra is an Indian film director and screenwriter. She is known for co-writing the screenplay for Yash Chopra's hit, DIL TO PAGAL HAI, as well as for frequently directing women-centric films, where heroines are the main protagonists, including DUSHMAN and SANGHARSH. 

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Her recent story collection, BIIJNIS WOMAN, was published by Penguin Random House. 

Rima Das is a self-taught writer, producer, and director born and raised in a small village in Assam in northeast India. In addition to her narrative & documentary features, she also manages a production company, Flying River Films, in Mumbai, which supports local, independent filmmaking. Her second feature, VILLAGE ROCKSTARS, will have its World Premiere at Toronto Film Festival and screen in San Sebastian's New Directors Competition. 

Sachin Dheeraj is an engineer turned filmmaker from India. He is currently studying and practicing film at The University of Texas- Austin as part of the MFA program in Film & Media Production. He is a recipient of the prestigious President's Award for Global Learning for his upcoming thesis film and an Austin Film Society Grant for his pre-thesis documentary, TESTIMONY OF ANA.

Pawo Choyning Dorji is a writer, photographer and filmmaker from the Kingdom of Bhutan. As a photographer, Dorji has contributed to publications such as VICE, Esquire, and Life.

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LUNANA - A YAK IN THE CLASSROOM,  his feature directorial debut, became Bhutan's first Oscar Nominee in 2022, with its selection in the prestigious "Best International Feature' category. 

Daria was first cast as lead actress in a play at age 10. Since then, she has acted in and directed  theatre productions in Kiev, working with Ukraine's best producers and directors. After obtaining a BA & MA in Philosophy with a minor in Film & Theatre, Daria moved to India to teach at Whistling Woods International Film School. While exploring India, she came across many underlying societal idiosyncrasies which were fascinating to examine through cinema. 

Hailing from a small Indian town, Tathagata has always believed in telling stories of people from different social backgrounds. His last short THE DEMON (DOITTO) has screened at more than 25 major international film festivals and has won 4 awards.

Deepti Gupta is a filmmaker & cinematographer based in Mumbai. She graduated from Film and TV Institute of India, where she discovered her love for art house and documentary cinema. She has shot over a dozen documentaries & features including LAXMI & ME, HONEYMOON TRAVELS PVT. LTD, RANU, & THE FAKIR OF VENICE. She has also shot commercials for major brands in India and abroad. She is among the founding members of IWCC, Indian Women Cinematographers Collective. SHUT UP SONA, her first feature documentary as director, premiered at MAMI, Mumbai and received a Film Critics Guild Jury Special Mention for gender sensitivity. 

Rubaiyat Hossain is a Bangladeshi film director, writer and producer. She is notable for the films MEHERJAAN (2011), UNDER CONSTRUCTION (2015) and MADE IN BANGLADESH (2019), for which she is currently developing a sequel. 

Fahim Irshad is Mumbai based screenwriter and director who has graduated from AJK MCRC Jamia. He has written for several shows, including the hit show MIRZAPUR.  AANI MAANI is his first feature film for which he won 'Best Debut Director' award at 24th International Film Festival of Kerala, 2019.

Tarun Jain is an Indian writer, actor, and filmmaker. He is best known for his work on the Digital Sitcom LIFE SAHI HAI, which he created, wrote and acted in, as well as for writing PYAAR KA PUNCHNAMA 2. While in Los Angeles, Jain took courses in writing, acting, and improv comedy. He quit his PhD in Electrical Engineering from USC to briefly work in the banking sector, before moving back to India to pursue his interest in films.

Born in Delhi, Deepti has been engaged in issues of social development sustainable livelihood for 10+ years. Her docu-drama KATIYABAAZ, co-directed with Fahad Mustafa, premiered at Berlinale. The film has a successful run at Tribeca and other renowned festivals, and won 'Best Investigative' Film at the National Film Awards.  

Self-taught independent southern Indian filmmaker Arun Karthick started out directing short films  at age seventeen. His debut THE STRANGE CASE OF SHIVA premiered at IFFR, and he was seen as a major new voice in Tamil cinema.His second feature NASIR premiered at Rotterdam, winning the 2020 NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film. 

NASIR earned widespread acclaim, screening at New Directors/New Films, AFI Fest, Mumbai Film Festival, and the Tarkovsky Festival, where it won the Grand Prix. At Indie Meme, NASIR won the Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature. 

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Nicholas Kharkongor has worked extensively in theatre and film for 20 years. His plays have been performed in India and abroad, including in London and New York. In film, he assisted one of India's foremost indie filmmakers, Rajat Kapoor. His debut feature, MANTRA, starring Kalki Koechlin, RajatKapoor and Adil Hussain, won Best Film as the 2016 South Asian International Film Festival, presented by HBO, in New York.

Kabeer Khurana is a 9-time international award-winning filmmaker and the co-founder of India's youngest publishing venture, Bombaykala Books. His film DALI won the Audience Choice Award at the Flatlands Dance Film Festival and HANGOUT (2020) was released on Disney+ Hotstar. He's also the founder of several youth-based social organizations, including Navrang (Ashoka University's film society) and The Mumbai Art Collective, for which he was featured on the cover story of India Today. 

Abhay Kumar was born in Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab. He graduated from Xavier’s Institute of Communications with a diploma in film direction. From 2009-2011, his short films won at the Mumbai Film Festival. His hybrid animation short became the first Indian film to compete in the animation category at Tribeca and went on to win top awards at Busan, New York, Regensburg, as well as a National Award in India. His feature documentary PLACEBO won the jury nomination for best debut at IDFA and competed at Hotdocs 2015. Besides making films, Abhay teaches  independent film-making and recently gave a TedX talk titled ‘Andrei Tarkovsky and the art of 3D printing’.

Born in 1978, Nagraj Manjule is a National Award-winning Indian filmmaker and screenwriter known for his first short film PISTULYA. He hails from a small village in Maharashtra. Manjule's second film, SAIRAT, premiered at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival and is currently the highest grossing Marathi film of all time. He is a writer and poet and has published a book of poetry in Marathi, Unhachya Katavirudhha, which won several awards.

Hardik Mehta is an Indian screenwriter and director. His short documentary, FAMOUS IN AHMEDABAD (2015), won the Golden Lotus at the 63rd National Film Awards for Best Non-Feature Film and was In Competition at 2016 HotDocs Toronto. He has also co-written the screenplay of Director Vikramaditya Motwane’s most recent survival-thriller, TRAPPED(2017). ROUND FIGURE (KAAMYAAB) is his first feature film.

Sandeep Modi is a filmmaker from Mumbai, India. An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, Sandeep writes from his growing experiences in the ever-churning belly of Mumbai and its class divide.  Sandeep prefers observing to reading or watching, making his own impression of life around him. His educational short film BEST FRIENDS FOREVER won him the prestigious National Film Award, 2015 while his debut short BILORI had IDPA give him the nod for Best Student Film of the year. An avid advertising film-maker, CHUMBAK is his feature-length debut.

In his twenty years of filmmaking, Sopan Muller has handled practically every format & genre of the craft - from advertising & corporate films to documentary, features, & television. Sopan was involved in the direction and production departments of Dev Benegal’s ENGLISH, AUGUST and SPLIT WIDE OPEN, as well as Sunhil Sippy’s SNIP. He co-produced Dev Benegal’s ROAD, MOVIE, which traveled to many major international film festivals – Berlin, Toronto, Tokyo and Tribeca.

Sanjoy Nag, born and raised in Kolkata, started out with documentaries before branching out to feature films. His debut feature MEMORIES IN MARCH,  premiered in the New Currents Section of Busan International Film Festival & won the Indian National Award in 2010 apart from featuring in the Indian Panorama, IFFI, Goa ‘2011; MAMI, Mumbai; Kerala IFF, Durban IFF, South Africa and numerous others across the globe.

Jafar Panahi is an award winning director, writer and producer from Iran. After several short films and documentaries, he directed his first feature THE WHITE BALLOON, which premiered in 1977 at Cannes' Directors Fortnight and won the Camera d'Or. Panahi's films are known for portraying realistic images of the Iranian society, causing them to be banned from the screen in Iran. Panahi has won a number of human right prices, such as the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and The Medal of Art for Freedom.

Lijo Jose Pellissery is an Indian film director, popular for his Malayalam films. Pellissery made his debut with the crime film NAYAKAN, following it up with the crime-drama CITY OF GOD, the black comedy AMEN & the experimental DOUBLE BARREL. ANGAMALY DIARIES (2017)is his fifth film. He won Best Director at the 48th Kerala State Film Awards for his sixth film EE. MA. YAU

After editing  SHIP OF THESEUS, Adesh joined the team of TUMBBAD as a co-producer, co-writer and co-director. He is currently writing his next feature, BAATUNI (Chatterbox). He runs Sohum Shah Films along with Producer-Actor Sohum Shah, and serves as a producer and creative head of the company.

Hamy Ramezan is a Finnish-Iranian film director and screenwriter. Having fled persecution in Iran, and survived Yugoslav refugee camps as a young boy, Ramezan and his family arrived in Finland in 1990. 

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Hamy's short film, LISTEN, premiered at Cannes and was nominated for best short at the European Fim Awards. His feature directorial debut, ANY DAY NOW, screened at Berlinale and went on to win the Jussi Award for 'Best Actor' in Finland. 

Gitanjali Rao is an Indian theatre actress, animator and filmmaker. She is devoted to spearheading independent animated film-making in India. At the Cannes Film Festival her animated short, TRUE LOVE STORY, was one of 10 selected short films at Critic's Week.  Her latest feature, the animated romance BOMBAY ROSE,  was selected as an International Critics Choice screening at POFF  in Tallinna and additionally screened at Venice International Film Critics Week. 

Shahrbanoo Sadat is an Afghan female writer and director based in Kabul.  She is currently working on the WOLF AND SHEEP pentalogy inspired by the life of her best friend, actor Anwar Hashimi.  Her first feature, WOLF AND SHEEP tells the story of a village much like the one where she and Anwar grew up. It won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival's Director's Fortnight in 2016.

Manish Saini graduated from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad specializing in Film and Video Communication.  His children's feature, DHH, was selected by the Toronto International Film Festival to screen in the kid's category.  DHH went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature in Gujarati. Saini is inspired by daily life and has an eye for seeing whimsy in the seemingly mundane. He aspires to tell thought-provoking stories that are rooted in Indian life and have a mass appeal.

Rakhee studied filmmaking in London and became drawn to documentary filmmaking. Her first documentary, MY BABY NOT MINE, centered on surrogate mothers in India and won awards internationally. She also directed shows for EPIC Channel, such as HERITAGE INDIA. RIBBON is Rakhee's first narrative feature as director and co-writer.

Konkona Sensharma is an award-winning actor from India. A DEATH IN THE GUNJ is her first feature as writer and director. She is the daughter of Aparna Sen, an award winning filmmaker herself, and granddaughter of Chidananda Dasgupta, a film historian and critic and one of the co-founders of the Calcutta Film Society along with Satyajit Ray. Beginning her acting career at the age of 4, Konkona has acted in over 40 films in Hindi, Bengali and English. She has been felicitated with two National Awards and several industry awards.

Known for her fierce determination and brazenly unapologetic heart, AJ Simmons is a Mestiza Canadian actor, writer, and filmmaker. With a diverse foundation in classical theatre and dance, AJ’s passion for storytelling is infused with a layered complexity. As an emerging filmmaker AJ has produced several short films.

Born in Mumbai in 1987, Chaitanya Tamhane is an English literature graduate. SIX STRANDS, his first short film, was screened at various international film festivals including Rotterdam, Edinburgh, and Slamdance. In 2012, he was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus at the Berlin Film Festival. COURT is his first feature film. After premiering at the Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Best Film in the Horizons category and the Luigi De Laurentiis award, the film went on to win the National Film Award For Best Feature.

Born and raised in China, Tian Tsering enrolled in the MA Filmmaking at the London Film School in 2012 where he specialised in Cinematography. He has since shot a numbers of short films that have circulated in film festivals worldwide. BARLEY FIELDS ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN is Tian’s directorial debut feature film, which has taken him 7 years to complete.

Tushar Tyagi is an Indian born and raised filmmaker. He holds a degree in Computer Engineering and a degree in Directing and Filmmaking from the New York Film Academy. From a very early age, he realized he wanted to tell stories, and show life as art and art as life.

Born in 1962, Prasanna Vithanage (Sinhalese: ප්රසන්න විතානගේ) is a filmmaker in Sri Lanka. His films have won many awards, both local and international, and have also been commercially successful. In his early theatre work, he translated and produced plays by international writers, and has adapted works of world literature to film.

Pramati Anand pursued her Masters in Film & Video from National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India. Her creative journey revolves around exploring stories, people and places through travel and audio-visual media.

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Her graduation film, JHAT AAYI BASANT (An Early Spring) was an official selection of IFF - Goa and is currently doing the festival rounds.

Faraz Arif Ansari is a Muslim, gay, non-binary Indian filmmaker known for writing and directing the multi-award winning LGBTQ+ shorts, SISAK and SHEER QORMA.

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Ansari also wrote the screenplay for SILVAT, directed by Tanuja Chandra.  Faraz aims to mainstream stories about queer people of color. 

Prakash Bharadwaj is a skilled actor with a background in theatre, TV, and Film.  In 2017, Bharadwaj forayed into screenwriting and direction with his short, RISHTA, and debut feature COLOURS OF LIFE. He has also collaborated for 10+ years with actor Aamir Khan as a personal dialogue coach and proudly claims to be behind Amir’s impeccable Haryanvi accent in the blockbuster DANGAL.

Upamanyu Bhattacharyya is an animator, comic artist,  filmmaker, & illustrator. He co-directed the highly acclaimed short ,WADE, with Kalp Sanghvi. As a founding partner of Ghost Animation, Kolkata, he has worked on a wide range of projects for clients including Google, Amazon, Doctors Without Borders, & Penguin. 

He is currently developing his first animated feature, CITY OF THREADS, set in Ahmedabad in the 1960’s.

Bijukumar Damodaran, commonly known as Dr. Biju, is a three time Indian national-award winning filmmaker. Born in Keralaa nd originally trained in Homeopathic Medicine, he is considered a leading voice in contemporary Indian cinema. 

Dr. Biju's work has screened & received honors at festivals including Cannes,  Shanghai, Telluride, Cairo, Goa, Dhaka, & more.​

Seemaa Desai studied advertising and ad film making and is a trained semi-classical dancer. She started her career as an assistant director at B.R films (B.R.Chopra), a leading production houses behind feature films, celebrity ad films, and pioneering television soaps. She assisted Mr. Ravi Chopra and went on to direct the daily soap AURAT and several prestigious ad films under B.R ADS BANNER.

Joy Dietrich is a self-taught filmmaker who was born in Korea, grew up in America's heartland, and matured under the European social democratic system. A former staff editor at The New York Times, her films explore themes of adoption, identity, and cultural displacement.

 RITUALS OF RESISTANCE, a collaboration with filmmaker Tenzin Phuntsog, is her first documentary feature.

Born in November 1973, Suresh Eriyat is a 1997 graduate from the National Institute of Design. Suresh set up Famous House of Animation in 1999. He created numerous animated ads, shorts, music video with many firsts that brought not only national and international recognition but also changed the way people perceived animation in India.

Anand Gandhi is a filmmaker and a media producer based in Mumbai most known for his debut feature ,SHIP OF THESEUS, which won the National Film Award for Best Picture, considered India's equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar. He has also written and directed several critically acclaimed plays and popular TV shows.

Benjamin Gilmour is a filmmaker, author and paramedic. His credits include the feature SON OF A LION (2008) and documentary PARAMEDICO (2012). It was Gilmour’s paramedic work that first led him to film, as he originally served as an on-set nurse.  As an author, his titles include  Paramedico – Around the World by Ambulance (Harper Collins) and the children’s book The Travel Bug (Penguin Random House).

Bhaskar Hazarika received his MA in Film & Drama. His debut film KOTHANODI (2015) was a recipient of Asian Cinema Fund’s Post Production Fund, and premiered at Busan International Film Festival 2015, in addition to screening at BFI London Film Festival, Goteborg Film Festival, and Jio MAMI Film Festival, among others. AAMIS (RAVENING) is Bhaskar’s second feature film.

Akshay Indikar is a young filmmaker from a nomadic tribe. He is an ex-student of The Film and Television Institute of India and the writer & director of TRIJYA, which premiered at the Shanghai International Film Festival, earning nominations for the Asian New Talent Award for Best Film, Director, & Cinematography. Currently, he's developing his second feature, CONSTRUCTION.

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Nishtha Jain is an internationally-recognized filmmaker based in Mumbai. She is best known for GULABI GANG (2012), LAKSHMI AND ME (2007) and CITY OF PHOTOS (2004). Her films interrogate lived experience at the intersection of gender, caste and class. Jain is an Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences  (AMPAS) Member and Film Independent Global Media Maker Fellow. Her films have been widely distributed a festivals, in cinemas, and on TV, winning 25 international awards. 

A self-taught filmmaker, Vijay Jayapal quit his corporate job to pursue film. Vijay's debut feature, the Tamil language marital drama, REVELATIONS,  premiered at the Busan International Film Festival. After the festival rounds, the film was released worldwide on NETFLIX to critical acclaim. Vijay’s second feature NIRVANA INN, a Hindi language psychological horror film, was completed with post production support from Busan’s Asian Cinema Fund (ACF). 

Sahraa Karimi comes from the second generation of Afghan refugees in Iran. She earned her PHD in directing in Slovakia, and has made 30+  narrative and documentary shorts. After 10 years of film-making, she returned to Kabul, where she completed two successful documentaries, broadcast internationally through ARTE France and BBC. HAVA, MARYAM, AYESHA, her first feature, premiered at the Venice Int'l Film Festival and went on to screen widely at world festivals, including Busan, Cairo, Kolkata, and the Asian World Film Festival. 

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International award-winning chef and TV personality Vikas Khanna not only owns a Michelin star restaurant in New York, he’s also a known author, philanthropist, and filmmaker. Khann's narrative feature debut, THE LAST COLOR, premiered at the 30th Palm Springs International Film Festival and won "Best Feature" at the Dallas International Film Festival. 

Sarmad Sultan Khoosat is a Pakistani director, actor, producer and screenwriter best known for his feature films: MANTO  and ZINDAGI TAMASHA (which won the top prize at Busan  and became Pakistan's official submission for the 93rd Academy Awards.) With a career spanning 20+ years, Sarmad has directed some of South Asia's most celebrated TV series amd was awarded the prestigious Pride of Performance Medal (the highest civilian award conferred by the President of Pakistan) for his outstanding contribution to Pakistan's Film & TV industry. 

Arriving on the Indian film scene 15 years ago, and blazing a new path in independent genre film, Nagesh has written, produced, acted in & directed successful and acclaimed films. His first film, HYDERABAD BLUES, broke traditional barriers of commercial and art cinema. Nagesh has consistently crafted stories that depict realism & authenticity over sheen & gloss, delivering a brand of cinema that is entertaining with a difference.

Navid Mahmoudi was born in Afghanistan and moved to Iran when he was 6 years old. From an early age, cinema captivated him. So, after beginning his career as an assistant director, he went on to direct his own shorts while producing other works. His credits as producer include A FEW CUBIC METERS OF LOVE and RONA, AZIM'S MOTHER. In 2016, he directed his debut feature, PARTING.  All three films were selected as Afghanistan's official Oscar entries.

Amit Masurkar is born and brought up in Mumbai and studied in IES School, Dadar. Amit dropped out of an engineering course at Manipal Institute of Technology at the age of 20 to pursue filmmaking. He later acquired a BA degree in History from Mumbai University.

Fawzia Mirza is an actor, comedian, and writer,  named a “Top 10 Creative” by Indiewire magazine and a 2016 White House ‘Champion of Change’ in Asian American Art & Storytelling. Mirza believes in dispelling the myth of the “model minority” in mainstream media and in the power of comedy to tackle divisive topics. Mirza has appeared in a number of  films, web series and shorts, including the Emmy-nominated Her Story. Mirza’s first feature SIGNATURE MOVE, which she co-wrote, co-produced and stars in  was selected as part of the Tribeca Film Institute All Access Program.

Batul Mukhtiar is a filmmaker & alumni of the Film & Television Institute of India, Pune. She lives in Mumbai abd writes her own scripts. Apart from several documentary shorts, she directed a documentary feature 150 SECONDS AGO which travelled to prestigious festivals across the globe. In 2007, she directed a children's feature film, LILKEE for the Children's Film Society, India. She also works as an associate producer and a line producer for international documentary crews.

Born in Kanpur, Fahad has since lived in Dammam, New Delhi, Vienna and Edmonton. He was an Erasmus Mundus Global Studies scholar. His 2013 docu-drama KATIYABAAZ, co-directed with Deepti Kakar, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film has a successful run screening at Tribeca and other world-renowned festivals, and later won 'Best Film' in the India Gold Section at the Mumbai Film Festival and 'Best Investigative Film' at the National Film Awards.  

Mahesh Pailoor is an award winning filmmaker based in Los Angeles. A graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and the American Film Institute,  Mahesh was awarded the prestigious Franklin J. Schaffner Fellow Award for his AFI thesis film, STILL LIFE, which went on to screen at over 20 international film festivals. Mahesh is an alumnus of the Berlin Talent Campus, Film Independent’s Project Involve and Screenwriting Lab, and the ABC/DGA Directing Fellowship. . BRAHMIN BULLS is his first feature.

•   ​ Indie Talk with Mahesh and Anu

Binod Paudel is a Nepal-based filmmaker and one of the pioneers of the academic study of film-making in Nepal. He wrote the critically acclaimed SAANGHURO, which received  the National Award (Nepal) and the SAARC Film Festival Best Fiction - Jury Award. Combining

​documentary aesthetics with narrative acumen, Binod focuses on developing new, accessible stories that connect South Asia to the world.​ He was recently honored with the National Award for Best Director. BULBUL is his feature debut. 

Tenzin Phuntsog is filmmaker living and working in Montana. He is the founder of the Tibet Film Archive and currently, Assistant Professor of Film at Montana State University. He received his MFA in Visual Arts at Columbia University in 2006. Before finishing his first feature documentary, RITUALS OF RESISTANCE, he dedicated over ten years to the preservation of rare archival films of Tibet’s bygone era and early exile years.

Priya Ramasubban is a reputed filmmaker who has traveled the world for over fifteen years making films for National Geographic, Discovery, History Channel, and other major international broadcasters. She is a storyteller at heart and has the ability to deal with complex subjects in a nuanced way allowing for textured interpretation.

Shilpa Ranade is an Indian animator, filmmaker, illustrator, and academic. Her award-winning animated feature GOOPI GAWAIYA BAGHA BAJAIYA premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and her animated projects have screened at prestigious festivals world-wide. She is as an associate professor at the Industrial Design Center at IIT Mumbai and a lecturer in the Audio Visual Unit at the Tata Institute of Social Science. There, she creates educational videos on social issues and communication through graphic design. 

A native of Kashmir and alumnus of UCLA, film director Danish Renzu hopes to inspire a new generation of Kashmiri filmmakers to practice their art as a force for unity in the conflicted region. He has directed several short films including award winning IN SEARCH OF AMERICA, INSHALLAH. His  feature-length debut, HALF WIDOW showcases the plight of a Kashmiri half widow.

Subash Sahoo is a National Award-winning sounder designer who has worked in such films as TUMHARI SULU, NEERJA, NH10, among  others. An electronics engineer and a graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India, he has worked in the Mumbai film industry over the last 24 years. THE SOUND MAN MANGESH DESAI is his first film as a director.

Prakash Saini made his debut as a director with the comedy MERI PASODAN (MY NEIGHBOR)‘Meri  in 2009. He is from a small village and did not have a traditional filmmaking background, but was fortunate enough to land work initially to hard work and the reception of his debut. 

Aditya Vikram Sengupta was born in Calcutta, India. At a young age his interests meandered towards the arts. He began training in western classical music and was an active dramatist throughout his childhood. Later, he trained in animation and film. His student shorts have screened at various international festivals including Animafest Zagreb and Sao Paulo International. His paintings have been showcased in galleries across India and one of his posters is exhibited at the Religious Art Museum, Tehran.

Jawad Sharif is an award-winning filmmaker who came to prominence exploring social subjects that are often ignored. Known for his sleek visual storytelling, he gained acclaim for his project K2 & THE INVISIBLE FOOTMEN which used breath-taking filming to depict the lives of sherpas at the hardest mountain in the world. He became the first Pakistani high-altitude filmmaker who filmed at K-2.  An alumnus of the, Swedish Institute and Institut Fur Auslandsbeziehunge, Germany, Jawad is also the founder of Bipolar Films.

Vaishali Sinha co-directed and produced MADE IN INDIA, a documentary detailing the personal stories behind the phenomenon of outsourcing surrogate motherhood to India. The film premiered at Hot Docs and aired on PBS, receiving several jury awards along the way. ASK THE SEXPERT is Vaishali’s second feature doc.  She has received support from the MacArthur Foundation, Tribeca Film Institute, Center for Asian American Media, Catapult Fund, Nextpix and more. She is originally from Mumbai, and now resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Priya Thuvassery is an independent filmmaker and television producer from Kerala, based in New Delhi, India. She has been directing, producing and editing documentary films & television programmes for New Delhi Television, Fox Traveller, National Human Rights Commission of India, Public Service Broadcasting Trust & more. Currently, she is working on a series of climate change films. 

Born and raised in the small town, Warangal, in the state of Telangana, India, and inspired by the Hindi parallel cinema of the 80’s, Moses Tulasi always wanted to get involved in socially relevant films. After spending over a decade in tech, Moses pursued his passion for film at Chicago Filmmakers. He served on the board of Trikone-Chicago for 6 years, a support group for LGBT individuals of South Asian heritage & allies. In 2014, Moses took a sabbatical to India, tracing his roots, in search of a subject for his first film. There, Moses was inspired to capture the queer rights movement in Hyderabad. This became his debut documentary, WALKING THE WALK.

Prateek is an independent filmmaker based in Mumbai. His debut feature documentary A VERY OLD MAN WITH ENORMOUS WINGS was awarded the Special Jury Award at the 65th National Film Awards. His narrative feature debut, EEB ALLAY OOO! revolved around a young migrant in New Dehli who lands the unusual job of keeping monkeys away from public buildings. The film was selection to screen at the Berlin Film Festival and went on to critical acclaim.