Welcome to DCSALF 2022

Meenakshi Shedde is an independent film curator, festival programmer, mentor and journalist, based in Mumbai, India. Berlin International Film Festival, South Asia Delegate, since 1998 till date (22 years). Dubai International Film Festival, South Asia Consultant, since 2010-2017 (8 years). Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA, Brisbane), Nominations Council, since 2013-2019. British Film Institute, Guest Curator, India on Film (1 year long curating), 2016.

Shirish Néné has served on the jury of the DC South Asian Film Festival every year since 2016, and can regularly be seen at this and other film festivals in the larger metropolitan area. A brief training period with noted Indian dramatist Badal Sircar, started a love for the visual and auditory story telling arts spanning almost forty years, and expanded from the stage to large and small screens. Most recently he and his wife have joined DC Storytellers a dedicated band of moviemakers in the DC metro area.

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is an award-winning author, poet, activist and teacher. Her work has been published in over 100 magazines and anthologies, including the Atlantic
Monthly, The New Yorker, Vogue, Verve, and Elle. Her awards include, among others, an American Book Award, a PEN Josephine Miles award, and a
Premio Scanno (also known as the Italian Nobel) award.

Professor Nandini Bhattacharya is a professor of English and affiliate of film, as well as Women’s studies and Africana studies programs at Texas A&M University. She mainly writes fictional short stories and novels. She won many awards, including first runner-up for the Los Angeles Review Flash Fiction Contest (2017-2018) and finalist for the Fourth River Folio Contest for Prose Prize(2018).

Banik is very passionate about serving the community from various angles—providing quality mental health-related services to children, adolescents, adults, and senior citizens. He has served in the Reagan Administration as a Member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse, President George H.W.Bush as the Executive Director, President’s Committee on Mental Retardation, and President George Bush as a Member, the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities. He has published a number of papers and articles in Professional Journals and presented papers as well as addressed a number of National and International Organizations and Associations. He has published two cookbooks and spoke on issues affecting human rights and other rights of individuals, especially women and girls.

Meera has been performing in theater/films for four decades in India and in the USA. She is actively involved in supporting film festival logistics. She has acted in many community theater productions, in professional plays and in the DC cap-fringe festival in the DC-metro area for over thirty years. She has also acted in numerous feature films, short films, commercials, industrials, and in shows on NBC, HBO, and FOX.

Suman Ghosh is a National Award-winning Indian filmmaker who has made six feature films and one documentary film. Suman Ghosh gained his B.Sc. in economics from Presidency College, Calcutta and his M.A. in economics from the Delhi School of Economics. He completed his Ph.D. in economics at Cornell University in 2002. He had his film training at Cornell University in New York.

Arindam Ghosh is an Artistic Director of Ebong Theatrix, a South Asian theater company which he co-founded in 2014. He is also a filmmaker specializing in micro-budget films on Indian stories with global themes. His first film, Shyamal Uncle Turns off the Lights, which he produced, was world premiered in Busan International Film Festival and in the U.S., it was premiered at the Museum of Modern Arts in NY, which won the prize for Outstanding International Feature at ReelWorld Film Festival. His second film, Peace Haven, won the prestigious Script Development Award from the Asian Cinema Fund

Nadeem Zaman is the author two works of fiction, a novel In the Time of the Others which was longlisted for the 2019 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and a collection of stories Up in the Main House (Unnamed Press 2019). Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His fiction has appeared in The Louisville Review, Singapore Unbound, Wilderness House Literary Review, Roanoke Review, Dhaka Tribune, Bengal Lights, and other journals. His novel The Inheritors will be published by Hachette India in 2022.

Snigdha Somani is a recent graduate from Roanoke College where she graduated with a B.B.A through the Honors Program. She is a freelance writer and specializes in search engine optimization based technical writing. She grew up reading authors like Enid Blyton & Ruskin Bond, and has developed a recent love for authors such as Harlan Coben, Durjoy Dutta and Marie Lu.

Anil Chopra’s first novel, Unforeseen Desire, is a poignant coming of age story set in the 1970s against the beautiful backdrop of Dehradun. His one-time guardian, Ruskin Bond recalls how quickly Anil devoured Mr. Bond’s library during the time they stayed together.  Perhaps it was the biographies of greats like Pasteur and Lister that led Anil to a career in medicine, and the ambiance of that library and the company of Mr. Bond, that drew him to express his literary talents. Anil was born in New Delhi and grew up in Mussoorie with his then guardian, Ruskin Bond.  After finishing medical school, he went to Great Britain where he earned a medical degree from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and Glasgow and went on to become a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin, Ireland. 

Shirish Néné has served on the jury of the DC South Asian Film Festival every year since 2016, and can regularly be seen at this and other film festivals in the larger metropolitan area. A brief training period with noted Indian dramatist Badal Sircar, started a love for the visual and auditory story telling arts spanning almost forty years, and expanded from the stage to large and small screens. Most recently he and his wife have joined DC Storytellers a dedicated band of moviemakers in the DC metro area.

Devdutt Pattanaik is an Indian mythologist, speaker, illustrator and author, known for his writing on Hindu sacred lore, legends, folklore, fables and parables. His work focuses largely on the areas of religion, mythology, and management. He has written books on the relevance of sacred stories, symbols and rituals in modern times; his more popular books include Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology; Jaya: An Illustrated Retelling of the Mahabharata; and Sita: An Illustrated Retelling of the Ramayana and My Gita. Pattanaik has incorporated the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into human resource management. Pattanaik is a columnist for Mid-Day, Times of India, CN Traveller, and he hosts a radio show/podcast for Radio Mirchi,  called The Devdutt Pattanaik Show.

Swati’s mission is to inspire joy, empower individuals and bring people together via the vehicle of Indian dance. In 2009 Swati founded her own cultural project and since then has worked with
thousands of individuals of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds. With her inclusive workshop and residency programming, she has partnered with organizations such as The Cancer Support
Community of Greater Philadelphia, Nationalities Service Center, The Alzheimer’s Association – Delaware Valley Chapter, and the Royer Greaves School for the Blind. Swati is a two-time story contributor to the “88+ Ways Music Can Change Your Life” books.

Amita’s journey has spanned roles as a writer, teacher, entrepreneur, investor, and inventor. A shared thread through all her work is a passion to foster well-being and unlock human potential. She is the author of United Mind: Rethinking How We Lead Our Lives, Work Together, and Change Our World (2022) and Enduring Edge: Transforming How We Think, Create, and Change (2014). Amita serves on the adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins and NIH FAES, where she teaches graduate courses on leadership. She is also a Maryland Governor’s appointee to the Board of TEDCO. Amita holds a BA in Biochemistry from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford. More at: vitamita.com/amita

The inner workings of the creative process often appear mysterious. Artists and writers through time have described it as being guided by a muse, gaining inspiration from an inner voice, or an intuitive knowing from deep within. In this workshop, we will explore a simple framework for understanding the mind that can empower any mind to unlock its creative and intuitive potential. The session will start with a talk, guide participants through a self-reflection exercise, and conclude with a Q&A session.