


Rajula Shah
Masterclass
Rajula is a Poet who draws, photographs, collage-s, tells stories, directs films, and coaches young filmmakers. She is a painting drop out of the Fine Arts Faculty Baroda. After that, she studied Sanskrit Language, English Literature, and History for her Bachelors, took a Masters in English Literature, and studied cinema at FTII, Pune,
majoring in Film Direction. She taught at the alma mater from 2011-2014 and continues to coach film students as guest faculty across Film & Media schools.
Her work is located in the interstice of Poetry, Story, Cinema, Philosophy, Music, Art. Oral-Aural cultures are at the heart of her study/ praxis. With a keen interest in the indigenous knowledge systems, its practitioners, and the changing practices thereof, her practice winds through a close collaboration with people, their histories and changing environments.
Her films screen widely in festivals, museums, and across Academic/ Art contexts. Among significant awards are the Horizonte Preis at Dokfest Munich Germany for Word within the Word 2008, Signs jury award for Beyond the Wheel 2005, the John Abraham National Award twice for the Best Experimental Film for Katha Loknath/ ReTold by Loknath 2013, & for short fiction Aisa Nahin Hua tha Tahera/ Jumbled Cans in 2014.
Her recent film At Home Walking has been awarded the Best Long Documentary prize at IDSFFK, Trivandrum 2021. It was an entry in the Academy Awards the same year.
Her poetry collection in Hindi Parchhain ki Khirki se has been awarded by Bharatiya Gyanpeeth NAVLEKHAN PURASKAR/ for Best New Writing in 2004; Among her translations, Ela Bhatt’s We Are Poor but so many, selected letters of Vincent Van Gogh Mujh par Bharosa Rakhna and Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad’s Hindi renderings are prominent. A short story collection Adhkhuli Ankh ka Sapna has come out in 2021. At present working on the book Being Director alongside translating into Hindi Khalil Gibran & Mary Haskell’s love letters.
She created New courses for FTII's Outreach Programme like Film Appreciation, Film Appreciation for Drama students, Alocana/ Film Criticism & Being Director. And has been on various juries including the PIFF, and IDSFFK National Film Awards.
She is based in Bhopal and is glad to be working as the Founder and Director of NOMADS –Center for Un/Learning in Cinema & Aligned Art Practices. It's a Not for not-for-profit trust with a colorful board of trustees, committed to creating a climate of Creative Thinking & Practice by building bridges between the past and the future.

Deepa Dhanraj
Masterclass
Masterclass
Deepa Dhanraj is one of the most renowned and highly regarded Indian documentary filmmakers, who has been directing and producing films since the eighties. Her legendary works include “Something Like a War,” “We Haven’t Come Here to Die,” “The Legacy of Malthus,”“Sudesha,” “Nari Adalat,” and “What Has Happened
to This City?” These films have been screened on ARTE, CBC, and SBS. A lifetime achievement awardee at IDSFFK 2023, her films have been invited to festivals such as IDFA, Berlinale, Leipzig, Oberhausen, Films de Femmes, Creteil France, Tampere, Vancouver, and Chicago. Deepa has been actively engaged in the women’s movement for over four decades, with a particular focus on political participation, health, and education. She was a founding member of Yugantar, a feminist film collective that produced notable documentaries highlighting women’s labor and their resistance against domestic violence. Her extensive filmography delves into various critical issues, including the violence and manipulation associated with population control programs, the establishment of Muslim women’s courts providing an alternative to patriarchal judgments issued by Sharia courts, and the emergence of Hindu majoritarianism.
Guided by a strong passion for education, She has dedicated substantial effort to collaborating with government schools in developing tailored pedagogical approaches suitable for first-generation learners hailing from Dalit and Adivasi communities. She also shares her expertise by teaching video production to women activists and regularly delivers lectures on media theory, engaging with audiences in both academic and public forums.

Payal Kapadia
Guest lecture
Payal Kapadia, an FTII alumna, is a prominent voice in contemporary Indian cinema. Her debut fiction feature “All We Imagine As Light” won Grand Prix at Cannes, 2024. In 2021, “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” earned her the prestigious Golden Eye award at Cannes. In 2017, her short film “Afternoon Clouds” was the sole Indian
selection at the Cannes Film Festival, and featured in the Cinefondation section. Her experimental short film “And What Was the Summer Saying” premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2018, where it received the Special Jury Prize. It also garnered acclaim at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2018 and was honored as the Best Experimental Film at the Mumbai International Film Festival in 2020.
Her work delves into the less visible, often hidden realms of memory and dreams. It is within the realm of minor, fleeting feminine gestures that she seeks to uncover the truths that define her practice.

R. V . Ramani
Guest mentor
Spanning a career of 35 years, with over 25 films directed and many more as a cinematographer, R V Ramani has made an invaluable impact on Indian independent documentary practice. His one-man-army, impressionistic films have earned him global and national recognition, including India’s National Film Awards,
Best Film at India’s National Film Awards, Best Film at the Mumbai International Film Festival, and the prestigious Bala Kailasam Award, among others. His notable films include “Oh, That’s Bhanu,” “My Camera and Tsunami,” “Santhal Family to Mill Re-Call,” “Brahma Vishnu Shiva,” “Saa,” and many more. His works have been showcased at significant festivals such as Yamagata, Busan, IDSFFK, Jeonju, and many others. Additionally, retrospectives of his films have been featured at festivals like documentArt in Germany, MIFF-India, and the Asia Pacific Triennale, among others. Prior to graduating from FTII with a specialization in cinematography, Ramani worked as a photojournalist. He has been teaching and mentoring generations of young filmmakers at various Institutions

Saumyananda Sahi
Guest lecture
Born in Bangalore, Saumyananda Sahi originally studied philosophy at St Stephens College in Delhi before deciding he wanted to be a cinematographer, attending the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune.
Over the past decade, Saumyananda has worked on a variety of projects, both factual and fiction, with such filmmakers as Kamal Swaroop, Shaunak Sen, Prateek Vats, Arun Karthick, Anamika Haksar, Thomas F Lennon and Prashant Nair. His work has played at film festivals around the world, including Cannes, Berlin, Sundance, Rotterdam, Locarno, Busan, Toronto, Hot Docs (Canada) and IDFA (Holland). He was nominated for an Asia Pacific Award (Balekempa, 2018), a 2021 Filmfare Award and, more recently, a 2023 Critics Choice Award for Best Cinematography.
His most recent work includes the documentary ‘All That Breathes’ (nominated for both a BAFTA as well as an Academy Award, and winner of the ASC Award for Best Documentary) and the Netflix limited series ‘Trial By Fire’, which opened to rave reviews and features on IMDb’s Top 100 list.
In 2022 Saumyananda was selected as one of the ten participants of BAFTA’s Breakthrough India programme. Film Companion also selected Saumyananda as one of India’s ‘Disruptors’ for the year 2022.
As well as his work as a cinematographer, Saumyananda has directed two documentaries and is presently completing his debut fiction feature as a director.
As a teacher, he has conducted workshops at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute of India, BITS Pilani (Goa), and NYU Abu Dhabi.

Heejung Oh
Guest lecture
Heejung Oh is a prominent and dynamic producer of documentaries and fiction films and the founder of Seesaw Pictures (2017). She grew up in South Korea, and her life is divided between Seoul and Amsterdam/Paris. She is an alumna of EAVE, Eurodoc, Rotterdam Lab, and Berlinale Talents, and has been
invited to the selection committee of IDFA, Sheffield Doc/Fest, DOK Leipzig, and AIDC.

Surabhi Sharma
Guest lecture
Surabhi has been an independent filmmaker making feature-length documentaries and short films since 2000. Her documentaries, fiction, and video installations engage with cities in transition using the lens of labor, music, and migration. Her works have been screened at the Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival,
Dubai International Film Festival, MAMI Mumbai Film Festival amongst others. Her film Bidesia in Bambai was nominated for Best Documentary at the 8th Asia Pacific Screen Awards. Her films have been recognized
and awarded at Eco-Cinema, Greece (The Ramsar-Medwet Award), Film South Asia,Kathmandu; Karachi Film Festival; and The Festival of Three Continents, Buenos Aires. She has also created video installations that have been exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery, London; nGbK, Berlin, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture and the 11th Shanghai Biennale.
Surabhi is Associate Professor of Practice and heads the Film and New Media program at the New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE

Dorottya Zurbó
Screening & talk
Talk
Dorottya Zurbó is a Hungarian filmmaker and educator. She has been teaching at the prestigious DocNomads Joint Master program in Europe. She premiered her first feature-length documentary ‘The Next Guardian’ (co-directed by Arun Bhattarai), – an intimate family story set
in Bhutan - at IDFA in 2017. Since then, it has been screened at more than 40 international festivals (True/False, San Francisco IDFF, MoMA DocFortnight etc.). Parallelly, she worked on her
first directorial debut ‘Easy Lessons’, a feature-length documentary about a young Somalian
refugee girl who tries to adapt to Hungary, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival Critics
Week section in 2018. The film participated in more than 40 international festivals (HotDocs,
Camden IDFF, Sarajevo IFF etc.) receiving awards such as the Hungarian Critics Award for
Best Documentary in 2019. Her new film ‘Agent of Happiness’ (do-directed by Arun
Bhattarai), - a multiportrait of Bhutan through the journey of a happiness surveyor - was
supported by the Sundance Film Institute, Catapult Film Fund and DMZ Docs Fund among
others. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival Word Cinema Documentary
Competition in 2024 and has been invited more than 40 film festivals and (CPH:DOX,
Thessaloniki, Sheffield Docfest, HotDocs, DocsBarcelona) sold to cinema release in 20
countries since then. It has won the Best Documentary Award at Biografilm Festival in Italy,
the Audience Award in San Fransisco Film Festival and the New York based Margaret Mead
Film Festival in the US and the Special Mention Award at the main competition at Millenium
Docs Against Gravity Film Festival in Poland.

Arya Rothe
Guest mentor
Arya Rothe is an independent filmmaker from Pune, India, and co-founder of NoCut Film Collective. Her debut feature-length documentary film A Rifle and a Bag (2020, India, Romania, Italy, Qatar) won the Special Mention of the Jury at the 2020 International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) in the in the Bright Future Competition.
The film received support from prominent documentary funds, including the DMZ Docs Fund, Creative Media Europe, Netherlands Film Funds, and others.
Her short documentary film Casa da Quina (2015) had its World Premiere at DocLisboa and won the Special Mention Jury Award at the International Film Festival FILMADRID in Spain. Her short film made in Hungary, Daughter’s Mother (2018) had its world premiere at the 61st Dok Leipzig Film Festival. She graduated in 2016 from the DocNomads Master Course. Before DocNomads, she studied at FAMU – National Film School of the Czech Republic.

Boris Mitić
Guest lecture
Born in 1977 in southern Serbia. Lived on a few continents, worked for a few years for the most prestigious global media, understood a few things and dedicated the rest of his life to creative parenting, creative football and creative documentaries: a Gypsy Mad Max recycling saga, a claustrophobic tragicomedy of the
absurd, a satirical documentary fairy tale, a feelgood parable about Nothing.
250+ festivals (Locarno, IDFA, Edinburgh, Abu Dhabi FF, Mar del Plata FF, Jerusalem FF),
20 broadcasters (ARTE, SVT, YLE, VPRO, RAI, Al Jazeera), 18 awards (Sarajevo, Madrid, Rome,
Mexico, Montevideo...), global lecturing track record (Edinburgh, Beirut, Doha, Kolkata,
Copenhagen, Moscow, Geneva, Sofia, Sarajevo, Florence, Bergen, Shanghai, London, Taipei).
Filmography:
Pretty Dyana (2003)
Unmik Titanik (2004)
Goodbye, How Are You? (2009)
In Praise of Nothing (2017)
www.dribblingpictures.com

Lipika Singh Darai
Mentor
Talk

Ranabir Das
Guest lecture
Ranabir Das is a cinematographer based in Mumbai, India. He graduated from the Film and Television Institute of India. His recent cinematographic work “All We Imagine as Light” (directed by Payal Kapadia) won the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. His first feature film as a cinematographer, “The Shepherdess and the
Seven Songs," premiered at the Berlinale in 2020. His second film, "A Night of Knowing Nothing," premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Cannes in 2021 and won the "L'œil d'or." His short film "The Last Mango Before the Monsoon," directed by Payal Kapadia, premiered at the Short Film Festival of Oberhausen in 2015.

Arun Bhattarai
Screening & talk
Talk
Arun Bhattarai is a filmmaker from Bhutan. His recent film Agent of Happiness debuted at Sundance Festival 2024 where it was a Grand Jury Prize nominee. It also won awards at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Biografilm
festival. It also played at, CPH:DOX, Thessaloniki Documentary Festival and Hot Docs. His short documentary Mountain Man won the grand Jury prize for short films at DOC NYC 2023, qualifying it for the 2025 Oscars. He premiered his first feature length documentary The Next Guardian at IDFA 2017. Arun’s films have been theatrically released and broadcasted all over the world. His films have received support from The Sundance Film Institute, The Catapult Film Fund, and The IDFA Berth Fund among others. He has also served as a Jury at the Sydney Film Festival. He was a graduate of Docnomads- European Masters.

Rajan Kathet
Screening & talk
Talk
Rajan is a filmmaker based in Kathmandu working in both fiction and documentary films. He is an alumnus of the DOCNOMADS European Masters, Berlinale Talents (2017, 2024), and the Global Media Makers LA Residency (2021/22). His first feature documentary, “No Winter Holidays”;
premiered in the International First Feature Competition section of Sheffield DocFest 2023, it is the winner of the NATIVA Award at Alternativa Film Awards 2023 in Kazakhstan and the Best Cinematographer Award at the MIFF India 2024. The film is a recipient of the DMZ Docs Industry Fund, the HAF/WIP Documentary, the HAF Goes to Cannes Award, the Best Emerging Asian Filmmaker Award, and the Docedge DocAviv Award at Docedge Kolkata 2019. It was also a finalist at the Whickers TV & Documentary Pitch 2020.
His short fiction, "Bare Trees In The Mist (2019)," was screened at several international film festivals, including the Toronto International Film Festival 2019, Tampere Film Festival, HKIFF, Encounters Film Festival, Dharamshala IFF, and Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia.
Rajan is also engaged in film education and mentors young filmmakers through his involvement in local film schools and filmmaking workshops. He regularly contributes to the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival (KIMFF) DocLab.

Mehdi Jahan
Guest lecture
Mehdi Jahan is a filmmaker and educator from Guwahati, Assam. His work challenges conventional image production methods by drawing from regional oral storytelling traditions. He creates a sensorial aesthetic that blends personal and collective histories, resulting in a cinematic language akin to poetry and dreams.
Mehdi's films have been featured at prominent international and national festivals and exhibitions. These include events in Brazil, Moscow, Spain, Italy, Peru, Romania, and India. He has also taught film studies and direction at institutions like Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute and Seamedu Media School.
In 2023, his work was featured in his first retrospective at the Millennium Film Workshop in New York. Mehdi is the recipient of the 2023 Berlin Fellowship in the Film and Media Arts category, awarded by Junge Akademie, Akademie der Künste, Berlin.

Sunir Pandey
Screening & talk
Talk
Sunir Pandey is a film director and producer based in Kathmandu and an alumnus of the Global Media Makers program. Since 2012, he has worked as a journalist in Nepal and as a writer, translator, and editor. Sunir’s debut film, “No Winter Holidays,” won the Nativa Award at the
Alternativa Film Awards 2023 and also received the Best Cinematography award at MIFF 2024. Sunir is involved in film education and the training of student filmmakers at Kathmandu University. He is currently working to promote documentary cinema culture in Kathmandu through the emerging Doc Talk campaign.

Mukul Haloi
Guest Mentor
Mukul is a filmmaker and educator from Assam. his works dwell between sensorial exploration and reflection on the socio-politics of his homeland. He is an alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India, Docnomads European Masters, Berlinale Talents, Locarno Filmmakers Academy, and the University of Delhi.
He's also a fellow of the Erasmus Mundus scholarship, Early Career Fellowship-TISS, and Nagari Film Fellowship-Charles Correa Foundation. His notable works include ‘Tales from Our Childhood,’ ‘Letter to Home,’ and ‘Days of Autumn´, which have received numerous awards, including the ‘Bala Kailasam Memorial Award,’ ‘Best Short at IDSFFK,’ and ‘Best Short – Cinema Experimenta,’ among others.
His films have been showcased at renowned film festivals such as the Locarno Film Festival, Yamagata Film Festival, Mumbai Indian Film Festival, Arkipel Jakarta, Curtas Vila do Conde, and many more. He has been teaching film through numerous online and offline workshops and at various Indian universities, including short courses at FTII and Ashoka University.

Sachin
Mentor
Sachin is a Rajasthan-based filmmaker who employs lens-based art to comprehend the world around him and express his ideas with an experimental approach. Coming from a family of farmers, Sachin is deeply invested in the visual exploration of agricultural practices in rural communities and their interconnectedness with
socio- ecological factors. He is an alumnus of Docnomads – Erasmus Masters, Interaction- Serbia, Taiwan Pitch, SUPVA, Rohtak, and the Central University of Rajasthan. His films have been shown at festivals including IDFA, IDSFFK, Design Museum UK, Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Busan Film Festival, IFFI Goa, and many others.
Sachin’s filmography includes fifteen short films with various key roles from direction, cinematography, editing to producing. In addition to his filmmaking practice, he has taught cinema at Chandigarh University and Parul University Vadodara.

Siddhant Sarin
Mentor
Siddhant Sarin is a filmmaker and educator from India. His films delve into the everyday mundane lives of people through observational methods. With an intimate and delicate approach, he traverses the interplay between individuals’ internal and external worlds.
He was supported by Asian Cinema Fund (Busan), Docedge, EIDF & Lithuanian Film Centre for his award winning debut film, ‘Ayena (Mirror)’, that premiered at festivals such as Krakow Film Festival, Dokfest Munich, Puerto Rico IFF, Kino Pavasaris amongst others. He represents his production ‘Teh Films’ that formed the world’s very first Indian, Lithuanian and S. Korean co-production team. His recent short documentary ‘MUM’ premiered in Fipadoc, Cinemajove, Guanajuato IFF and won awards at IDSFFK, Kerala, Brussels IFF and Caminhos do Cinema Português. He has graduated as a scholarship student at Docnomads and has previously studied cinematography at DFFB and FAMU. He graduated from Govt. Law College, Mumbai before pursuing his filmmaking career. He envisions author driven artwork that is reflective and socially relevant.