Crescent in the Saffron Sky
Alishan Jafri, 27, is a journalist and documentary filmmaker based out of Delhi. His work has been featured in various national and international media including DW, PBS, BBC, ABC, Al Jazeera and Codastory. Jafri’s undercover reportage from some of India’s most hostile conflict spaces, has received international acclaim including the International Press Institute award. Since graduating from the Jamia Millia Islamia University, where he majored in Mass communication, Jafri has focused on broadcast and documentaries.
Omair Farooq is a director, cinematographer and editor with experience in documentary and fiction storytelling. He specializes in socio-political and environmental themes, with a strong focus on marginalized communities. Omair has worked with media organizations such as Deutsche Welle, BBC, PBS, ABC, Confluence Media, Article 14 and The Wire. His photography has been featured in LensMagazine and his films have been screened at several film festivals across India.
Inside Out
Amit Mahanti is a filmmaker, cinematographer and editor who lives between New Delhi and Shillong. He has worked on films and video installations that explore questions of ecological transformation, culture and politics. His films include Every Time You Tell A Story, Scratches On Stone and Two Autumns in Wyszogród. He has been selected for numerous art and film residency programs, and his work has been exhibited at various film festivals and art platforms, most recently at the Humboldt Forum, Berlin (2022-25) and the Kochi Muziris Biennale (2022-23). Amit was a recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Short-term Fellowship, 2016.
State of Hope
Anjali Monteiro and K.P. Jayasankar retired as Professors from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, in 2020. They played a key role in setting up the School of Media and Cultural Studies, and the MA and Ph.D. programmes in Media and Cultural Studies, which is a unique blend of theory and practice. They have been commissioning editors and mentors for over 100 documentaries by students and early career filmmakers and continue to teach and mentor young people. They were awarded the Satish Bahadur Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Film Education, by the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad in 2022. Their documentary films, which have been screened across the world, have won 33 national and international awards They were participating artists in the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2018, with their installation based on their film Saacha (The Loom, 2001). They write in the broad areas of documentary film, and media and cultural studies. Their book A Fly in the Curry (Aakar 2024, Paperback, Sage 2016, Hard Cover) on independent Indian documentary, won a Special Mention for the best book on cinema at the National Film Awards, 2016. They have been visiting faculty and fellows at several leading media and design institutions and lectured at universities across the world. More about their work at http://www.monteiro-jayasankar.com.
A Minuscule Minority
Avijit Mukul Kishore, a Mumbai-based filmmaker, specialises in documentary and interdisciplinary moving-image practices. An alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India (Cinematography) and Hindu College, University of Delhi (History), he frequently collaborates with artists, architects, and academics. He also contributes to film education as a lecturer, writer, and curator. His work has been featured globally at prestigious venues such as Chicago Architecture Biennial, Sharjah Architecture Triennial, Pinakothek-Moderne Munich, Kochi-Muziris Biennale and Dhaka Art Summit in addition to film festivals including CPH Dox, Sheffield Docfest, Dok-Leipzig, Documenta Madrid, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, IDSFFK, Film South Asia, Open Frame Festival, MIFF, among others.
Our Symbol is?
Greeshma Kuthar is an award-winning independent journalist and trained lawyer from Tamil Nadu, known for her deeply reported stories from India’s most politically complex and underreported regions. Her journalism focuses on power structures, marginalisation, and the changing dynamics of identity politics across the country. With a sharp investigative approach, she has consistently explored how political ideologies and regional aspirations shape the lived realities of communities, especially in areas witnessing socio-political transitions.
Dr Manju Priya K is an academician and researcher whose work intersects cinema, caste, gender, and political ideology. Having completed her PhD on Tamil film production, social identity and regional/cultural capital, she continues her research on marginalized communities in India. Her academic practice combines ethnographic fieldwork, visual analysis, and critical theory, with a focus on popular culture, symbolic power, and the politics of representation.
The Battle Royale
Lalit Vachani’s films include The Boy in the Branch (1993) and The Men in the Tree (2002) on the RSS and Hindu nationalism; The Salt Stories (2009) follows the trail of Gandhi’s salt march in Gujarat; An Ordinary Election (2015) is an in-depth study of an Indian election campaign, and Prisoner No. 626710 is Present (2024) is about citizenship, student protests and the imprisonment of Umar Khalid. In 2007, Vachani directed In Search of Gandhi as one of ten international filmmakers commissioned by the ‘Why Democracy?’ global television series broadcast across 35 international television channels. Vachani has received grant awards from India Foundation for the Arts, Bard College, Jan Vrijman Fund and the Sundance Documentary Fund. His work is extensively used by academic institutions for research and teaching. Other screening venues include World Social Forum (Mumbai), Oberhausen Short Film Festival, DOK-Leipzig, Kino-Arsenal (Berlin), IDFA (Amsterdam), FID Marseille, One World Prague, IFFR (Rotterdam), IDSFFK (Kerala), and the Asian Social Forum (Hyderabad). In 2021, he curated the online film festival series, Crossings, with support from DAAD. He is the co-producer of Election Diaries — a series of photo-essays and documentaries covering the Indian national elections of 2019 and 2024. Vachani teaches courses on media and politics, and documentary theory and production at the University of Göttingen, Germany.
Gola Dreams
Pankaj Rishi Kumar graduated from FTII Pune (1992). His first film was ‘Kumar Talkies’ (1998). Subsequently, Pankaj has become a one-man crew. (Pather Chujaeri, The Vote, 3 Men and a Bulb, Punches n Ponytails, Seeds of Dissent, In God’s Land). Since 2012 he has been actively documenting in Pondicherry (a former French colony). ‘Two Flags’ (2019), Janani’s Juliet (India’s official entry to Oscars) and ‘To Die a Frenchman’ are 3 films based out of Pondicherry. The films engage with the Tamil French community, its people and reflect on the historical past. His films have been screened at film festivals all over the world. (Berlin, Rotterdam Yamagata, Busan, Visions Du Reel, Margaret Mead). He has won grants from Hubert Bals, IFA, Jan Vrijman, AND/DMZ (Korea), Banff, Majlis, Sarai and Pad.ma. Pankaj was awarded an Asia Society fellowship at Harvard Asia Centre (2003). He is an alumnus of Asian Film Academy (Busan) and Berlin Talents. Pankaj also curates and teaches.
Ruke Na Jo
After completing his Bachelors in Sociology from Delhi University, Prateek Shekhar did his Masters in Media and Cultural Studies from Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai. His documentary film Chai Darbari (2019) won the Best Short Documentary award at the 12th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK), India and was screened at numerous film festivals. His debut feature length documentary film Chardi Kala – An Ode to Resilience (2023) premiered and won Second Best Long Documentary Award at the 15th IDSFFK, India; Best Feature Documentary, South Asian Film Festival Montreal 2024, Canada and Jury Award, Film Southasia 2024, Kathmandu, Nepal.
Sangama
Sunanda Bhat is the founder of Songline Films. She takes a patient, unhurried approach to making
films, allowing stories to unfold in layers that reveal the resilience of people and the subtle
transformation of their environment. Her first documentary BOL AYESHA BOL [SPEAK
AYESHA SPEAK] premiered at the International Film Festival, Amsterdam [idfa].
Her films have screened at several international and Indian film festivals and won awards,
prominent ones being – ‘Monde en Regards’ at the Jean Rouch International Film Festival,
Paris; Planet in Focus Film Festival, Toronto, Golden Conch for Best Documentary at the
Mumbai International Film Festival, John Abraham National Award for Best Documentary. Her
film ‘NINGAL ARANAYE KANDO?’ | ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THE ARANA?’ featured at Musée de
l’homme in Paris and was part of the ‘India Film Week’ at Metropolis Kino, an art-house cinema
theatre, in Hamburg, Germany.
She was an artist-in-residence at the Pepper House Residency hosted by Kochi-Muziris
Biennale and is an active member of Vikalp Bengaluru, a collective of filmmakers that screens
the best in non-fiction cinema in the city. She is currently working on a documentary film in
Coastal Karnataka. Sunanda lives and works in Bangalore.