

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.

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.

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.

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.