Gurinder Kaur Chadha, is a Kenyan-born British film director of Indian origin. Most of her films explore the lives of Indians living in England. The common theme in her work showcases the trials of Indian women residing in the UK and how they must reconcile their converging traditional and modern cultures. Many of her films address social and emotional issues, especially ones faced by immigrants caught between two worlds.
Gayatri Das known professionally as Geetu Mohandas is an Indian former actress and director known for her works in Malayalam cinema. In 2013, she directed the socio political film Liar's Dice which has received two National Film Awards, was premiered at Sundance Film Festival, and was chosen by the Government of India as India's entry for the U.S. 87th Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars.
Anupama Vinod Chopra (née Chandra) is an Indian author, journalist and film critic who served as the festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival from 2015 to 2023. She is also the founder and editor of the now-defunct digital platform Film Companion, which offered a curated look at cinema with an emphasis on Indian film. She has written several books on Indian cinema and has been a film critic for NDTV and India Today, as well as the Hindustan Times. She also hosted a weekly film review show, The Front Row With Anupama Chopra, on Star World. She won the 2000 National Film Award for Best Book on Cinema for her first book Sholay: The Making of a Classic. Chopra joined the Indian iteration of the film journalism outlet The Hollywood Reporter in 2024, launched domestically in the same year by the RP Sanjiv Goenka Group.
Richa Chadha is an Indian actress who works in Hindi cinema. She made her acting debut with a small role in the comedy film Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (2008). Chadha's breakthrough came in 2012 with the crime film Gangs of Wasseypur, in which her role as the foul-tongued wife of a gangster earned her the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actress.
Payal Ghosh is an Indian actress and politician who primarily appears in Telugu and Hindi films. She is the vice president of women's wing of Republican Party of India (Athawale).
Ali Fazal is an Indian actor who works primarily in Hindi and English films and series. He made his screen debut with a small role in the English film The Other End of the Line (2008) before appearing in the American television miniseries Bollywood Hero (2009). He had his first Hindi film release with a supporting role in 3 Idiots (2009), and went on to star in Always Kabhi Kabhi (2011), Baat Ban Gayi (2013), and Bobby Jasoos (2014).
Sonali Cable is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language comedy drama film directed by Charudutt Acharya and produced by Ramesh Sippy and Rohan Sippy. The script, penned by Acharya himself, was one of the eight scripts selected for the Mumbai Mantra-Sundance Institute Screenwriters Lab 2012, chosen through an evaluation process of submissions from around the world, including the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, France and Germany. A newcomer, Rhea Chakraborty, has been hired to play a pivotal role. Ali Fazal is paired opposite Rhea while Raghav Juyal makes his acting debut with this film. The film was released on 17 October 2014.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a 2015 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Marielle Heller, based on the hybrid novel of the same name by Phoebe Gloeckner. It stars Bel Powley as a 15-year-old girl who becomes sexually active by starting a relationship with her mother's boyfriend. It also stars Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgård, Christopher Meloni, Quinn Nagle, and Austin Lyon. It premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and had a limited release on August 7, 2015, by Sony Pictures Classics.
Main aur Charles is a 2015 Bollywood crime film written and directed by Prawaal Raman and produced by Cynozure Networkz. The film is a fictitious thriller inspired by true events; it is told from the perspective of the Indian cop, Amod Kanth, who handled the case of the Indian Origin French serial killer Charles Sobhraj who was known as the bikini killer. The film opened on 30 October 2015 to positive reviews across India. However, it was a box office flop, grossing ₹80 million against a ₹100 million budget.
Srinivas Sunderrajan or Vaas is an Indian musician and an independent filmmaker based in Mumbai, widely known for his films - The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project, and Greater Elephant. He is the co-founder of a DIY production house Enter Guerrilla Films, and has directed the third season of The Dewarists. He is currently the bass player for Mumbai’s hardcore band, Scribe.
Love Sonia is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Tabrez Noorani and produced by David Womark. The film features newcomer Mrunal Thakur as the title character along with Riya Sisodiya, Freida Pinto, Demi Moore, Manoj Bajpayee, Richa Chadda, Anupam Kher, Adil Hussain, Rajkummar Rao, and Sai Tamhankar. Love Sonia had its world premiere at the London Indian Film Festival on 21 June 2018. The film was released in India on 14 September 2018 and theatrically in the UK on 25 January 2019.
Kani Kusruti is an Indian actress known primarily for her work in Malayalam films. She first gained recognition in 2009 with the film Kerala Cafe, in which her performance was critically acclaimed. Kani won the Best Actress at Kerala State Film Awards and the Best Actress Award at the Moscow International Film Festival for her performance in the film Biriyaani (2020). She has since starred in the independent films All We Imagine as Light and Girls Will Be Girls.
I Am Woman is a platform created by the Karan Gupta Education Foundation and IE Business School to celebrate and award the inspiration of women. At the event power women speak about their professional and personal challenges and how they overcame them.
Section 375: Marzi Ya Zabardasti?, better known simply as Section 375, is a 2019 Indian Hindi-language legal drama film directed by Ajay Bahl, written by Manish Gupta and produced by Kumar Mangat Pathak and Abhishek Pathak. It is based on Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code laws in India. The film stars Akshaye Khanna, Richa Chadda, Meera Chopra and Rahul Bhat. Principal photography of the film began in January 2019.
The 2024 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 18 to 28, 2024. The first lineup of competition films was announced on December 6, 2023.
Shuchi Talati is an Indian film director. She won the Audience Award for Dramatic World Cinema at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival for her film Girls Will Be Girls.
Anupama Srinivasan is an Indian film director. She is known for Nocturnes (2024), a documentary exploring the world of moths in the Eastern Himalayan forest.
Preeti Panigrahi is an Indian actress who starred in the 2024 film Girls Will Be Girls. She received the Special Jury Award for Acting at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival for her performance as a high school student navigating the complexities of adolescence and societal expectations.
Agent of Happiness is a 2024 documentary film directed by Arun Bhattarai and Dorottya Zurbó, and produced by Noémi Veronika Szakonyi, Máté Artur Vincze, and Arun Bhattarai. It follows Bhutanese government officials, Amber Kumar Gurung and Guna Raj Kuikel, as they travel through the country to measure people's happiness levels, which are then used to calculate the Gross National Happiness score.
The MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024 took place between 19 and 24 October 2024 in Mumbai, India. It was the first edition of the festival under interim festival director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, following the departure of Anupama Chopra from the festival director position. It was also the first edition of the festival since 2014 to not have a title sponsor.
