Kireet Khurana is a filmmaker, storyteller, animator and ad-film director. Kireet has won more than 30 awards, including 6 prestigious President’s National Awards for his films, the first of which he won in 1995 for the animated film Mahagiri. He has made over 12 short films, and over 500 ad. He is the director of India’s first film combining live-action and 3D animation called Toonpur Ka Super Hero, His 2018 feature film T for Taj Mahal was launched at the Festival de Cannes in 2018, and premiered at the London Indian Film Festival. It won the Best Feature Film Audience Award and Best Story Award at the DC South Asian Film Festival. Kireet has worked on many award-winning public service campaigns, including a series of four short films for Childline India Foundation on child labor, child marriage, corporal punishment and child sexual abuse. He has served on the Jury of many international awards including National Film Awards, MIFF, FICCI-BAF Awards and PIFF, Pune.
Born in Sofia, Bulgaria. Graduated in Film and TV Graphics from the High School of Applied Arts in Prague with animated film Sonata Facile. During the same period illustrated a book of Bulgarian fables, published by Alba-tros in Prague, and then started as a animator and director at the Sofia Animated Film Studio in Bulgaria. Made “The Little Girl, the Kitten and the Wall Clock”, in 1984 which was presented in Annecy. His illustrations are published in Bulgaria and Switzerland. Exhibitions of his drawings are presented in Serbia and Slovakia. In 2018 he made “Roses in the Night”, entirely made with water colors on paper and awarded with Jameson Short Film Award. Member of Selection Committees and Juries at many festivals in Europe and Asia. Kunchev is a Guest professor at Jilin Animation Institute in China and Lecturer at New Bulgarian University in Sofia. He is President of ASIFA Bulgaria and Board Member of ASIFA International.
A National Award-winning filmmaker and film critic, Utpal Borpujari is a former journalist and alumni of IIT- Roorkee. His fiction debut “Ishu” (Assamese), produced by Children’s Film Society, India (CFSI), has and won the National Award for Best Assamese film at the 65th National Film Awards and a Special Jury Award in 10th Bengaluru International Film Festival, 2018. In 2003, he had won the Swarna Kamal for the Best Film Critic at the 50th National Film Awards. Borpujari has served on several film juries, including MIFF, National Film Awards, Indian Panorama and many other film festivals. He is also active as a film festival organizer and curator, and has extensively written on cinema, politics, society, literature and culture.
Thomas Waugh, teacher, writer, programmer, critic and activist, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Cinema, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. His publications on documentary film have ranged from the collections Show Us Life: Toward a History and Aesthetics of the Committed Documentary (1984) and I Confess! Constructing the Sexual Self in the Internet Age (2019) to the monograph The Right to Play Oneself: Looking Back on Documentary (2011).
A K Bir is a renowned director – cinematographer. He received a Diploma in Cinematography from FTII, Pune in 1969. He shot and directed a number of advertising, short and documentary films and won a number of awards for them including from IDPA and Cannes. A K Bir also handled camera in the first unit of the Oscar winning film Gandhi. Six of his feature films which he has scripted, photographed and directed have won national awards for the best film. He has won three national awards for best cinematography. Some of his awards winning films are – Adi Mimamsa, Lavanya Preeti, Aranyaka, Shesha Drushti (as director) and 27 Down, Daasi & Adi Mimansa (as Cinematographer). A K Bir also teaches at the FTII, Pune and SRFTI, Kolkata as an External Expert and Guest Lecturer. He has served as a member of Jury of many international film festivals including Berlin International Film Festival (children’s section), MIFF, ICFF, Lucknow and also was Chairman of the National Award Jury (Non-feature).
Rehina Pereira is an accomplished media professional with over 25 years of experience demonstrating broad-based competencies. She is the Founder/Executive Producer of Verite Productions Pte Ltd, an independent content production company set up in 2000 in Singapore. Under her leadership, the company has won a number of local and international awards. A former journalist/writer with a Bachelors degree in Science, a Masters degree in Communication Studies, and a diploma in film production from New York, Rehina produces content across multiple genres and languages, including documentary, drama, content for children and animation. She specialises in producing print-to-screen adaptations for television. Rehina’s past experience (1989-2000) includes being a writer/journalist, a Special Correspondent for a multi-media company and an Executive Producer for an international media company.
Amrit Gangar is a Mumbai-based film theorist, curator, author and historian. He has also to his credit several short and conceptual films. Over the years, he has worked with a number of Scandinavian and European film makers and artists on documentary films and video installations, including The Five Obstructions by Jorgen Leth and Lars von Trier. As an academic, he has taught at a number of film schools and institutes, including the National Film School in Lodz (Poland), the Danish Film Institute (Denmark), the Industrial Design Centre, IIT, Bombay, etc. Amrit Gangar was Consultant Curator of the National Museum of Indian Cinema (NMIC). He had curated film programs for the Kala Ghoda Artfest (Mumbai), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (Kerala) and many other cultural events. For his curatorial writings and activities, the Cinematographers’ Combine had honored him, as also the International Federation of Cine Clubs had honored him for his work for the Indian film society movement.
She’s a coordinator of the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF) since 2001 and the director of Tokyo Office since 2015, and also works for Cinematrix, a film distribution company based in Tokyo. Hama coordinated programs at YIDFF like “Okinawa: Nexus of Borders: Ryukyu Reflections,””Islands / I Lands-Cinemas in Exile,” “Vista de Cuba” and more. She co-founded the art curatorial unit cimarcus. She also curated the film program for the Aichi Triennale 2016, in which Takamine Go’s feature-length film “Hengyoro (Queer Fish Lane),” the film that Hama produced, premiered
Shaji N Karun is an acclaimed n film director and cinematographer. His debut film Piravi (1988) won the Caméra d’Or – Mention d’honneur at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival. He was the premiere chairman of the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, the first academy for film and TV in India and was also the executive chairman of the International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) from 1998 to 2001. He is best known for his award winning films Piravi (1988), Swaham (1994), Vanaprastham (1999) and Kutty Srank (2009). He won the National Award for Best Director for his debut film Piravi. He also won two Kerala State Film Awards for Best Director for his films Swaham and Vanaprastham. Shaji Karun has served on the Jury of many Indian and International film festivals. Currently, he is the Chairman of Kerala State Film Development
Corporation.
Video artist, filmmaker, composer, Robert Cahen is situated in the boundaries between arts. Researcher, in the1970’s, he is a pioneer in the use of electronic instruments. Graduated from Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris; he brings to video technical and linguistic experimentations from the school of
concrete music. Awarded the Villa Med́ icis Hors les Murs, Grant in 1992, he created in 1995 a permanent video installation in Euralille, Lille.France . Since 1997, his work has been exhibited in international
contemporary art exhibitions: Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain,Greece, China, Vietnam, Argentina, Perou, Colombie, United States, Korea,Japan,…. France. In 2010, a complete Retrospective, Cinema
and Video at le Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Ashish S. Kulkarni is Chairman of FICCI for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics Forum and Chairman of MCCIA Animation & Gaming committee. He has set up world-class animation studios in India and created the finest original Indian animated content, such as his magnum opus Little Krishna (2009) and Shaktiman (2011). Krishna and Kans was India’s first animated stereoscopy 3D feature film, released in three languages – Hindi, English and Tamil. His latest venture is India’s first girl superhero series, titled Mary Kom Jr. .
Ashish is a science graduate with Diplomas in Marketing & Sales Management, and Public Relations, Ashish worked with several companies finally becoming CEO of Reliance Animation and AIMS. Being one of the pioneers in animation education in the country after having designed the curriculums for Arena, Whistling Woods, Birla Institute of Technology, Manipal University,NIITE University, Annamalai University & Lovely Professional University, having served on the academic council of FTII Pune, Ashish S K initiated Reliance AIMS (Animation & Infotainment Media School) one of the most premium Animation and VFX education venture in the country. . As CEO he took Reliance Animation to the global arena while carving a niche as the finest Indian animation studio for original IP creation. Soon after he launched his own concern Punnaryug Creations.
Ashish has been a final jury member on iEmmys, Kid’s iEmmys, VES, 24 FPS, FICCI BAF, New York Film Festival, Banff Awards, Dada Saheb Phalke Awards.He has bagged several awards – too numerous to be named. Recently, in 2013, he was honoured with an Honorary Doctorate in Business Management by the Open International University of Complementary Medicines, Kuala Lumpur. He has one burning desire: to take Indian animated content to the global market and provide the artistic talents in our country a direction, a solid route map to take Indian Animation Industry to its heights.
Sekhar Mukherjee joined National Institute of Design as a student of Animation Design in 1992 after a two-year stint as cartoonist, illustrator, and graphic artist at the Economic Times, After graduation, Sekhar worked in various fields of Communication Design and joined NID in 2002 as a faculty in Animation Film Design. Since 2003, Sekhar has been heading Animation Film Design and mentoring the future generation of Indian graphic storytellers. He organises an international students’ animation film festival called Chitrakatha at NID.
Sekhar regularly contributes two comic strips for the Sunday cartoon column in Ananda Bazaar Patrika, a leading newspaper published from Kolkata. In May 2009, he received the CNBC-Aptech award for his outstanding contribution to animation education in India. He is also on the editorial board of Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal, published by Sage Publications, UK. Sekhar is a regular invitee to many animation film festivals and events as the jury member and resource person both in India and overseas.
Ramesh Meer is the Chief Creative Director & CEO of The FX Factory, and has an experience of 44 years in the creation of Special Visual Effects for motion pictures and television as well as every aspect of film and television production. Ramesh Meer graduated in cinematography from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. He decided to concentrate on special effects rather than become a cameraman and among the first films he worked on were those of Manmohan Desai starting with Amar Akbar Anthony. He worked on more than 200 feature films much before digital technology came into force. The varied range of Special Visual Effects he has worked on include optical, mechanical, miniatures, glass shots, pyro-technical effects and blue as well as green screen travelling mattes and chroma keys.
He then set up his own companies: The FX Factory and FX Post Pro. The two departments have now grown to six. As a creative director and visual effects supervisor, he has supervised and worked on the Visual Effects of more than 350 feature films, 800 teleserials as well as more than 1000 television commercials in the last four decades. He had also been responsible for system designing and integrating one of the biggest production cum post production facilities of India, CMM Studios now known as Aastha Broadcasting Network Ltd, where he served as a Vice-President (1994-1996). Ramesh Meer has also presented technical papers on Special Visual Effects and Virtual Reality in international forums like IBC in Amsterdam and ITVS in Montreux, Switzerland, apart from chairing the Broadcast India Conference for the last 19 years and a host of Indian and International Forums.
Jane Yu was born in Taiwan and received her M. A. degree in cinema studies from New York University. She began her career as a film critic and programmer. She has worked for the Women Make Waves Festival and the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and has been director of the Taiwan International Documentary Festival since 1990. She is also actively involved with many film festivals including Busan International Film Festival, Netpac, FIPRESCI, Women’s Film Festival in Seoul, Yamagata International Documentary Festival, Singapore International Film Festival as a jury member. She is also a co-founder of the Asian Network of Documentary Fund. Yu has written and translated various books, including the biography The Cinema Magician – Chen Po-Wen’s World of Cinema. Other publications include Asian Documentary Today and Women and Image: Diverse Views of Women’s Cinema. She is also the founder of the Book Meets Film Forum, which promotes the adaptation on film of Chinese books. She is also the producer of the documentary Face Taiwan: Power of Taiwan Cinema (2015).
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Gitanjali Rao graduated with honours as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, in 1994. She is a Gold Medallist with seven awards for the Best Final Year Project at the Institute. She is a self taught animator, filmmaker, illustrator, teacher and theatre artist. She has since, independently produced, directed and animated three award-winning short films, Orange, Printed Rainbow and True Love Story. She has also made a live action short Chai. She also has a string of very popular and award winning animated commercials to her credit. Gitanjali also conducts masterclasses, workshops and presentations and has been in the jury at various International Film Festivals including The Cannes Critic’s Week 2011. She has been teaching storytelling, design and 2D animation, in various animation schools in India.
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Audrius Stonys (born 1966, Lithuania) is a member of European Film Academy and European Documentary Network. He is also Representative in the Board of Management of Eurimages-Film Fund of the Council of Europe. He began his creative activities in the last years of the Soviet Empire. Since then he has made 20 films as an independent filmmaker and producer. His films won many international film awards, among them, Grand Prix in Split, Audience prize in Nyon, prizes in Bornholm, Florence, Gyor, Neu Brandenburg, Oberhausen, Bilbao and San Francisco. In 1992 the film Earth of the Blind received European Film Academy award “FELIX” as the Best European Documentary film of the Year. The years 2004-2005 Audrius Stonys spent as a documentary teacher in European Film College, Denmark. He lectures in Barcelona, Tokyo, Berkeley, Stanford, Belgrade, checkout xpornmofos.com furry porn. He tutors at DocEdge, Kolkata. He is representative of Lithuania in Eurimages. Retrospectives and master classes: Switzerland, Russia, France, Japan, Israel, Czech Republic, Germany, New York, San Francisco, Belgium, Spain, Italy. Since 2006 he has lectured in Tokyo Waseda University.
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Siddharth Kak is a documentary maker, television producer, and presenter, best known as the producer and presenter of Surabhi (1993–2001). Siddharth Kak’s Television Company, Cinema Vision India, has won several major Television Awards and three National Awards and has produced more than 100 documentaries and several long running Television series for leading Television Channels in India. In collaboration with the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), Siddharth Kak is, at present, producing and hosting a primetime reality show HUNNARBAAZ! Mission Skill India! for the Prime Minister’s Skill Mission. He is also the Founder Trustee of the Surabhi Foundation for Research and Cultural Exchange (Surabhi FORCE) which is developing projects of National Cultural importance
He has served variously as a Member and Chairperson (twice) of the National Short Feature Film Awards, Chairperson of the Selection Committee for the Indian Panorama, a member of the Shilp Guru Selection Committee, Ministry of Textiles, Govt. of India, the International Selection Panel of Judges of the “UNESCO-Seal of Excellence for Handicrafts” Award and member of the Suraj Kund Mela Authority which administers India’s largest annual Crafts Festival. At present he is a member of the Governing Board of the Central University of Jammu and the Executive Council of the Central University of Kashmir.
A well known foodie, he has written food columns for many national newspapers and has also produced and directed two very successful food shows, The Good Food Guide and the Star Sunday Lunch. Both these programmes were telecast on Star Television. He has also published a book of poetry Looking in Looking out and compiled a quiz book on India’s heritage Surabhi ke Sau Sawaal.
Uma da Cunha is a Programmer, journalist, researcher and casting director. She obtained her Masters Degree in English Literature from Delhi University and taught the subject for a year at Miranda House. After working as Copywriter with Lintas Advertising, Uma joined the Directorate of Film Festivals in Delhi as Deputy Director in the early 1970s. Over the years Uma has been the India representative of international film festivals held in Toronto, Dubai and more recently Busan. She is the Founder-Adviser of Indian film festivals held in London, Los Angeles, Stuttgart, The Hague, Florence, Houston, Melbourne. She programmes for the MJio MAMI and the International Film Festival of Kerala. She has been on the jury of Cannes International Film Festival (2009), Un Certain Regard (2010), the FIPRESCI jury at Pusan International Film Festival. In November 2015 she served on the International Jury for Feature Films at Cochin’s First All Lights India International Film Festival as also IFFI. She has also been active in film societies such as Anandam and initiated Dristhi. She also served briefly as President for Maharashtra Region of the Federation of Film Societies. Her work as casting director includes films such as Monsoon Wedding, Holy Smoke, Lagaanand Water among others. She has written extensively on the cinema and has edited several publications. She now edits Film India Worldwide.
Mathieu Roy is a Montreal-based filmmaker who works in both documentary and fiction. For the last decade, he has traveled the world while collaborating with a number of inspiring artists, including legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. After a degree in Political Science and a brief stint in journalism, Mathieu Roy enrolled in the filmmaking programme at the New York Film Academy in 2001. In 2002, he entered Montreal’s National Film Institute (INIS) where he directed four short films and also met François Girard becoming a close collaborator. In 2003, Mathieu was hired as Martin Scorsese’s personal assistant for the filming of The Aviator. In 2005 his film François Girard’s Three-Act Journey was awarded the Prix Gémeaux for the Best Cultural Documentary. In 2006, he directed La Peau de Léopard, a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict featuring Québécois iconic journalist Pierre Nadeau. In April 2009, at the opening of the 27th International Festival of Films on Art (FIFA), Roy presented Death in Venice, a musical journey with Louis Lortie. The film was awarded the Prix du public ARTV and also screened at the Louvre, in Paris, and at the prestigious Morgan Library in NYC. In the summer of 2011 Mathieu completed Ecclestone’s Formula, a critical documentary about Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone. His documentary feature Surviving Progress (2011) is a reflection on the dark side of the ideology of progress and the future of our civilization. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and also traveled to important film festivals (IDFA in Amsterdam, DIFF in Dubai, FIFE in Paris, Ambulante in Mexico City, Planet Doc in Poland, Turin, Rio, Moscow, Göteborg, Tokyo, Goma, Kuala Lumpur, Bogota Vancouver, Mumbai). In 2013, Mathieu made his first fiction feature Another House, a family drama dealing with Alzheimer’s disease visit https://カジノ777.com/pachislot/blood-suckers-2/.
Biju Dhanapalan or Biju D, as he is popularly known, is one of the pioneers of visual effects in the Indian film industry. After obtaining a degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, he went onto study Product Design at the Industrial Design Centre, IIT Bombay. Here, he accidentally stumbled upon the magic of graphics and animation. This trans-disciplinary training and expertise helped him in his career spanning two decades. Biju has also been involved in stereoscopic projects across varied media. Starting his career as a visual effects supervisor in 1997, Biju D has delivered visual effects for more than 100 feature films and leads a team of visualisers, animation and compositing artistes. Some of the major feature films featuring his visual effects magic include Dumkata, Johnny Gaddar, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Naina, Pinocchio, Yakeen, Hawa, Cape Karma and many more. Recently, he has joined hands with Frameboxx Animation & Visual effects for a project-based visual effects course that leverages upon Frameboxx’s Incubation Facility at Mumbai. The two-month full-time course is aimed at creating production-ready visual effects artists in India.
Mike Pandey is an Indian film maker specializing in films about wildlife and the environment. He has won over 300 awards for his work to spread awareness about biodiversity and species conservation. Born in Kenya, the Nairobi National Park,…
Don Askarian is an international producer, film director and screenwriter of Armenian origin. He was born in Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh. In 1967 he went to Moscow and studied history and art. He worked as an assistant director and film critic for a year after his study but was imprisoned between 1975 and 1977. In 1978 he emigrated from the USSR to West Berlin. Since then he has lived and worked in Germany, The Netherlands and in Armenia, where he founded his own film company Margarita Woskanian Film Production (1982). His first film was The Bear, based on Chekhov’s story (1983-1984). In 1985-1988 he made Komitas, which won several prizes at international film festivals and there was no looking back. With Komitas and Avetik Don Askarian became the most important Armenian film director”
In 1995 founded the production and distribution companies, Don Film in Armenia and in 1998, Askarian Film in Germany. In 1996 Don Askarian’s book Dangerous Light was published in Armenia. The book includes scripts, essays, interviews by Don Askarian as well as reviews of his films by the world press. He is a prize-winner at several international film festivals. Critics describe his films as “magic realism” but he himself describes his shooting method as the “creation of new reality”.
TV-Stations like ARD, WDR, ZDF, Channel 4, Arte, but also Belgian, Greek, Swiss, Slovakian, Armenian TV Channels are constant co-producers and buyers of all his films, which were sold and broadcast worldwide about 80 times. He is perhaps the only director whose “purely Armenian” films have been professionally distributed and proved financially successful in Germany, Japan, Holland, England.
Retrospectives of his films were held at the Philadelphia Filmfest of World Cinema ’93; Int’l Filmfest Figueira da Foz ’93; lnternational Filmfest Sao Paulo ’93; Tokyo lnternational Filmfest 1994 (https://www.ibetnetwork.com/new-casinos). In 2002 Don Askarian was honored with a Harvard Film Archive retrospective. In 2004, he received the Golden Camera Award for Life Achievement at Int. ART Film Festival, Slovakia.
Dan WOLMAN is an Israeli filmmaker, theatre director and academic who studied film at The Film Institute of City College New York and the New York University. His first feature film The Dreamer (1970) was an official entry at the Cannes Film Festival. His filmography includes Floch (1972), My Michael (1974), An Israeli Love Story (2008) and Valley of Strength (2010). His films have been screened at festivals around the world including Cannes Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival and Shanghai International Film Festival. He has recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Jerusalem International Film festival and the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival for his contributions to cinema. He was also awarded Arik Einstein prize (2015), the Lifetime Achievement award at the International Film Festival of India (2018) and the Ophir Lifetime Achievement award (2016) awarded by the Isreali Film Academy in recognition of his achievements and contribution to Israeli cinema and culture. He has taught cinema at Tel Aviv University, New York University, The School of Visual Arts and, most recently, made a film with the students of National Academy of Chinese Theatre Arts in Beijing.
Subhash SEHGAL is a well-renowned film editor who has worked on more than two hundred and fifty films in the Indian film and television industry. As a student of editing at the Film and Television Institute of India, he received a gold medal in the subject. Following this, he joined the Bombay film industry where he worked on many important films including Waaris (1988), Ijazat (1987), Lekin (1991), Teri Meharbanian (1985) and Ek Chadar Maili Si (1986) for which he won the Filmfare award for Best Editor. He has won numerous National awards for his work in Punjabi cinema, namely Chann Pardesi (1981), Madhi Da Deeva (1989) and Kachehari (1994). As an editor, he has worked with leading filmmakers of Indian cinema such as Ramanand Sagar, Zia Sarhadi, Gulzar, K. Bapaiah, Ravinder Peepat and Sudhendu Roy among many others. His work as a director includes the films Pyar Koi Khel Nahin (1999) and Yara Silly Silly (2015). He also produced the series Ek Kahani Aur Mili, written by Gulzar, for Doordarshan. He is also a poet whose works have been prolifically published since he started writing in 2015.
Anant VIJAY is a National Film Award-winning journalistand author from India. His career in television and print journalism extends across more than two decades with writings on cinema, politics of culture and literature. His weekly column has been running for twelve years in Dainik Jagran, a newspaper with one of the largest reader bases in the country. He has authored twelve books across genres including the well-received Bollywood Selfie, a book on the legends of Indian cinema. Other works include the best-selling Amethi Sangram and Marxwad ka Ardhsatya. A keen student of the Hindi language, he has organized literature festivals and served on Hindi literary bodies and editorial boards in active advisory roles. He has served on numerous jury and selection committees including as the jury chairman at the National Film Awards and the chairman of the selection committee of Konkani films at the International Film Festival of India (2019). He continues to be actively engaged with academia and educational institutes to train upcoming journalists and writers. Besides winning the National Film Award for Best Writing on cherry Cinema, Anant Vijay is the recipient of the prestigious Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Award and the Father Camille Bulcke Award.
Ashley RATNAVIBHUSHANA is a journalist, author, film critic and film society activist. He is the director of the Asian Film Centre (AFC) in Sri Lanka and the founding editor of the journal Cinesith. As the foremost interpreter of Sri Lankan cinema to the outside world, his scholarly publications on Sri Lankan cinema include Early Sri Lankan Cinema and Its Association with South Indian Film Industry (NETPAC & AFC, 2012). He is also the co-author of several important publications on the history of Sri Lankan cinema including An Incomplete Sentence – The Cinema of Dharmasena Pathiraja (NETPAC, 2009) and LJP – Lester James Peries, Life and Work (AFC, 2004). He is currently a board member and the jury coordinator for the Network for the Promotion of Asia Pacific Cinema (NETPAC). He is also a member of the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) and the president of the Sri Lanka Federation of Film Societies. He has served as a jury member at several international film festivals. His work with film festivals includes his role as the executive coordinator of the Commonwealth Film Festival (2013) held in Colombo and as the Senior Asian Programmer for the second edition of the International Film Festival of Colombo.
Jean Pierre SAIRE is a world-renowned French producer and director with an academic background in philosophy and theatre. He was initiated into the world of theatre at The Centre Dramatique de l’Est in Strasbourg. His foray into cinema began in 1970 with the direction of three prize-winning short films. Following this, he worked as an assistant director on the feature films of Serge Leroy, Roger Hanin and Liliane de Kermadec. After working on commercials, corporate programmes and the French Foreign Ministry’s cultural magazine show Aujourd’hui en France, which was shown on 180 channels around the world. As a producer of feature and documentary films, he has worked on over thirty films that have won awards at film festivals around the world including the Cannes Film Festival, the Academy Awards and the Venice International Film Festival. His productions include Indochine (dir: Régis Wargnier), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film (1991); La Bonne à Tout Faire (dir: Melvin van Peebles), which was screened at the Critics’ Week at Cannes Film Festival in 1999; and Tosca (dir: Benoît Jacquot), which was the opening film at the Venice International Film Festival in 2001. He has also held executive positions in a number of influential production companies such as Incite Productions, Etamp, Septembre Production and ARTE.
Sanjit NARWEKAR is a Mumbai-based National award-winning film historian, author, publisher and documentary filmmaker with more than four decades of cross-media experience in journalism, public relations, publishing and filmmaking. A former news editor of Screen (1980-1991), editor of TV & Video World (1994-95) and Documentary Today (2007-2012), he has also served on innumerable film selection committees and juries including the National Critics Jury, MIFF (2006) and the Cinema Writing Awards and the National Film Awards (1999). His passion for film history has manifested in more than (written and edited) books including Marathi Cinema In Retrospect (1995), which won the Suvarna Kamal for Best Book on Cinema. In 2020, he was awarded the Bimal Roy Memorial Award as a recognition of his priceless contribution to film scholarship. His work as a filmmaker includes the Films Division-produced India Unveiled (1998), Lavni Rupdarshan (2004) and Nations in Turmoil (2011). He is presently working on a history of Films Division tentatively titled Documenting India: The Legacy of Films Division.
Mina RAD is an Iranian-born and French-based documentary filmmaker, producer and journalist. She began her career as an award-winning political and cultural journalist for the BBC, RFI and AFP in various Central Asian countries. Since 2014, she has been the festival director of the Festival Après Varan in Paris, creating a global network of filmmakers inspired by the work of Jean Rouch. Her first film For Me the Sun Never Sets (2012) was awarded the prize for best documentary at the Cinema Vérité Film Festival in Tehran. Her filmography includes Persian Tales, Jean Rouch in Iran (2018) and The Future of the Past, Pierre and Yolande Perrault (2019). She is also the founder of World Cultural Diversity, which produces films of cultural and anthropological interest. Through the WCD, she has produced and directed Mr. and Mrs. Mafi (2022), which looks at hundred years of education in Iran, and Spirits, Forest and Rivers: Memories of Worlds from the Hupd’äh of the Amazon, which explores the worlds of the Hupd’äh community of the Amazon in collaboration with the ethnographic archives of Renato Athias.
Jayasree BHATTACHARYA is an eminent theatre artiste and filmmaker. At the age of three, she started learning theatre from her paternal aunt, the renowned actress Keya Chakraborty. Her journey in cinema started as an assistant director to the filmmakers Buddhadeb Dasgupta and Rituparno Ghosh on the films Uttora (2000), Mondo Meyer Upakhyan (2002), Chokher Bali (2003) and Shubho Mahurat (2003) among others. As a filmmaker cherry, she has directed several award-winning documentaries, shorts and one feature film. Her film Madur won the Best Film award at the Dhaka International Film Festival. She also won the Best Director award for her film Binisutarmala at the International Women’s Film Festival, Kolkata. Besides filmmaking, she has worked as a casting director on several international film projects including Sara Gavron’s Brick Lane (2008), Sangita Datta’s Life Goes On (2009) and Italo Spinelli’s Behind the Bodice(2010). As part of her theatre activity, she teaches at the National School of Drama (TIE) and has conducted several theatre workshops in the North East.
Subbiah NALLAMUTHU is an award-winning wildlife filmmaker from Chennai. He studied cinematography at the Film and Television Institute of India. Following this, he filmed Living on the Edge, India’s longest-running Panda Award-winning environment series. He has also worked with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) as a high-speed cameraman. His passion for the Royal Bengal Tiger has translated into five tiger-centric international documentaries for National Geographic Channel and BBC. His prolific filmography includes Tiger Dynasty (2012-2013), Tiger Queen (2010) and The World’s Most Famous Tiger (2017). He has made innumerable documentaries on the environment and the interaction between humans and the ecosystem such as Earth File (2000) for BBC World and The World Gone Wild (2001) for Animal Planet. His achievements in wildlife cinematography include the distinction of being one of the first to use 4K resolution for wildlife filming in India. He has won several national and international awards including the National Film Awards five times. He is a regular jury member of the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival and has also served as the jury chairman of the Indian Panorama Film Festival (2021).
Tareq AHMED is a filmmaker and producer whose career in producing and directing documentaries and television programmes spans more than twenty-five years. As a producer, he has used his extensive knowledge of producing audio-visual programmes for local and international agencies to nurture a space in Bangladesh for the development of numerous notable documentary projects. In this capacity, he is also the director of the Dhaka DocLab, a project market for Asian documentary filmmakers in Bangladesh. He is also the Artistic Director of Liberation DocFest, the foremost documentary festival in Bangladesh organized by the Liberation War Museum. For nearly a decade, he led a media and communication organization, which worked with grassroots media and media professionals. He has also authored a number of books on cinema.