Rituparna Sengupta is Indian actress and producer who is known for her work in Bengali, Odia and Hindi cinema. One of the most successful actresses of Bengali cinema, she rode the crest of her box office success in the late 1990s. She has won a National Award, two Filmfare Awards, four BFJA Awards and four Anandalok Awards.

Rituparna was born on 7 November 1970. She was interested in the arts since a young age and learned painting, dancing, singing and handicrafts at a painting school, called Chitrangshu. She studied at Carmel High school, and later graduated in history from Lady Brabourne College. She began studying Modern History for an M.A. at University of Calcutta, but had to interrupt studies to concentrate on her career as an actress.

Rita Azevedo Gomes is an independent filmmaker who, since 1989, the year of her first feature film, has been recognized for her quality and autonomy in the film industry. Her films have been acclaimed by both national and international critics and have been selected for various film festivals worldwide. She has received numerous awards and has been honoured with retrospectives of her work. She is frequently invited to participate in symposiums, master classes, and debates.

She has been active in the fields of Cinema, Theatre, Opera, and other artistic domains since the early 1970s. As a filmmaker, after her debut feature film, “The Sound of the Shaking Earth” (1989), she persisted with determination in her cinematic endeavors. Nearly a decade passed, and in 2001, she directed her second feature film, “Fragile as the World,” which was enthusiastically received at the Venice Film Festival and highly praised by critics.

Dr. Anjali Monteiro retired recently as Professor and Dean from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India. She is a documentary filmmaker, media researcher and teacher. Jointly with K.P. Jayasankar, she has made over 40 documentary films, many of which have been screened at film festivals, winning thirty-three awards. She writes on documentary film, media, and cultural studies. She has co-authored the national award-winning book A Fly in the Curry: Independent Documentary Film in India (Sage, 2016). Her recent publications include the co-edited volumes, DigiNaka: Subaltern Politics and Digital Media in Post-Capitalist India,Orient Blackswan, 2020 and Many Voices, Many Worlds: Critical Perspectives on Community Media in India, Sage, 2021.

Born in Munich Germany, and after receiving her MA in Photography & Video, Daniela Creutz moved to New York City where she completed her postgraduate film program (directing, screenplay & acting) at Tisch School of the Arts, NY Atlantic Theatre Company and NY Film Academy. Shortly after, she founded her own film production, B/C/P (BlueCirceProductions LLC) and lived and worked in New York City for 15 years. Initially, she was hired as a designer for broadcasters such as ABC Network and CBS Studios, but then increasingly produced independent films, especially documentary films, fiction short films, corporate and image films, which she wrote and directed. The development, as well as the creative and technical realization of different film topics – from research to writing treatments and screenplays, up to the final postproduction – have been Daniela’s core competence for many years.

INTERVIEW

Kim Longinotto is a British documentary film maker,  well known for making films that highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination.  Longinotto has made more than 20 films, usually featuring inspiring women and girls at their core. Her subjects have included female genital mutilation in Kenya (The Day I Will Never Forget), women standing up to rapists in India (Pink Saris),  and the story of Salma,  an Indian Muslim woman who smuggled poetry out to the world while locked up by her family for decades.

Tannishtha Chatterjee is an Indian film actress and director best known in the west for her performance in the British film Brick Lane (2007), the film adaptation of Monica Ali‘s best selling novel of the same name for which she was nominated best actress at the British Independent Film Awards. Her other notable roles have been in Academy Award-winning German director Florian Gallenberger‘s film Shadows of Time, Road, Movie with Abhay Deol, Dekh Indian Circus, for which she won the National Film Award – Special Jury Award / Special Mention (Feature Film) and Marathi film Doctor Rakhmabai for which she has won the Best Actress Award at RIFF (Rajasthan International Film Festival) and PIFF (Pune International Film Festival). In 2019 she directed her first feature film Roam Rome Mein.