Anjali Monteiro is a former Professor from the School of Media and Cultural Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is involved in documentary production, media teaching and research. She played a key role, along with her colleague and partner, Prof. K.P. Jayasankar, in setting up of the MA and Ph.D. programmes in Media and Cultural Studies at TISS, the first of its kind in India and has done pioneering and innovative work in critical media education in India. In recognition of their contribution, the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad conferred the Prof. Satish Bahadur Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Film Education on them, at the 6th Alpavirama — International Youth Film Festival, in November 2022.
Continue reading Anjali Monteiro, Jury at Imagineindia for Best EditingCategory Archives: Women,s voices
Whispering Walls (Eylem Kaftan) Turkey
Whispering Walls
Eylem Kaftan
Turkey. 2025. 70 min
Whispering Walls is a creative, cinematic, and artistic meditation on a Turkish artist in New York in 1960’s trying to navigate his way in a complicated time in American history when people were out on the streets for civil rights and when art was a true act of struggle expressing itself in the most intense way on street walls.
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Maroun Returns to Beirut (Feyrouz Serhal) Lebanon
Maroun Returns to Beirut
Feyrouz Serhal
Lebanon, Qatar. 2024. 125 min
2023 marked the thirtieth anniversary of Maroun Baghdadi’s sudden and tragic death. Maroun was a Lebanese filmmaker who wrote and directed films during the Lebanese civil war and contributed to documentary and fiction filmmaking from 1973 up until his death in 1993. In this film, Feyrouz Serhal embarks on a day trip in Beirut and navigates the city that profoundly shaped Maroun’s journey in life and cinema. Here she encounters individuals who were close to him and who shared his experiences. And as she traverses Maroun’s life and career, the social and political backdrop moves to the foreground. The film reflects on the last fifty years of the history of the country from a present standpoint. Through Maroun’s story, we perceive how cinema can, beautifully and dramatically, portray our stories and discourse our life events.
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What will People Say (Rafina Khatun) India
What will People Say
Rafina Khatun
India. 2024. 40 min
Gulnaaz remains committed to using community radio to shed light on injustices and oppressions faced by marginalised communities, despite constant scrutiny and control by her family and community. Through her empathetic storytelling, she brings attention to untold narratives and advocates for unity and harmony. Amidst her fight for social change, Gulnaaz grapples with her own struggles for freedom and autonomy. This is the story of a young Muslim woman dreaming differently in a patriarchal society determined to silence her.
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Sepideh Abdolvahab, Jury at Imagineindia
Sepideh has incorporated as Jury Member for Best Editing Award.
Sepideh Abdolvahab is an Iranian-born film editor based in the
United States. She comes from a prominent filmmaking family: her
mother, Haydeh Safiyari, is an internationally acclaimed editor
with two Oscar-winning films and a member of the Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, while her father, Mohsen
Abdolvahab, is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and
screenwriter recognized with honors such as the Silver Wolf Award
at Amsterdam and the Asia Pacific Screen Award.
Catharsis (Valeria Popova) Russia
Catharsis
Valeria Popova
Russia. 2024. 21 min
After the next cancellation of his performance, an old Actor makes s decision to die. Having met with a young untalented Colleague at the poster of his native theater, the Actor is convinced of the correctness of his decision. He gets on a strange bus, in which he meets a woman, who becomes a “victim” of the acting of her new acquaintance.
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Give a Way (Maria Melenevskaya) Russia
Give a Way
Maria Melenevskaya
Russia. 2024. 22 min
An intelligent woman, a seller in a second-hand bookstore, unconflicted and comfortable. It seems that she has long forgotten about herself and will endlessly tolerate, forgive and adjust. On a narrow road, her car can not separate with the car of a man who never backs up. What will she do? Will she give way or will she finally assert her rights?
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Ann Hui, A career spanning independent cinema to the mainstream
Anyone trying to slot Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui into a particular genre will be at a loss, for all through her 45 year-long career, she has moved easily between varied spaces, from independent cinema to the mainstream, from personal films to a bit of action too. For that matter, she has made a horror film too. Ask her about it and the 77-year old, who was conferred with the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK)‘s Lifetime achievement award, says with disarming candour that she was just trying to see what she was good at.
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Ana Vico, Jury for Best Short Film at Imagineindia
Ana Vico was born in Huelma, a small town in Andalucía (Spain). At 18, she moved to Madrid to study Audiovisual Communication at the Complutense University. Very interested in intimate cinema, she shot a couple of short films of this style with her group of friends from college, both with a very limited budget. After finishing her degree, she began the Directing Diploma at ECAM to continue learning and developing her films. “Un amor” is her Diploma Graduation short film, which was selected at this festival, Imagine India International Film Festival.
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Thimea (Susana Fialho Mota) Spain
Thimea
Susana Fialho Mota
Spain. 2024. 15 min
Set in a dreamlike, colorful, precious and imaginative world, the script tells the story of the magical life of Thimea, a girl who works in a flower shop and that until then,her life has been marked by her difficult childhood in an orphanage.
As a child, in that place of confinement and loneliness, Thimea discovers an artwork that will changeher life forever. The colors, the light, the joy of a painting that will have a healing power over her.
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