Academy-Award nominated film director Mira Nair is best known for her groundbreaking films that cross borders of all kinds: Salaam Bombay! (Caméra D’or, Cannes 1988), the pioneering Asian-African romance Mississippi Masala (1991), Golden Globe & Emmy-winning Hysterical Blindness (2001), and the international hit Monsoon Wedding (2001), for which she was the first woman to win Venice Film Festival’s prestigious Golden Lion. Also known for her literary craftsmanship of subcontinental fiction, Mira has filmed The Namesake (2006), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), Vanity Fair (2004), A Suitable Boy (2020) and Queen of Katwe (2016). Her next film will be AMRI, an experimental portrait of Amrita Sher-Gil. Her most recent endeavor was directing Monsoon Wedding the Musical, which opened in New York City in May 2023 and is bound for Broadway.

An activist by nature, Nair founded Salaam Balak Trust for Indian street children in 1988 and the Maisha Film Lab in 2004, a free school to train filmmakers in Africa. In 2012, she was awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour.

David Michôd’s debut feature, Animal Kingdom (2010), won the Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize, earned Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for supporting actress (Jacki Weaver) and was named Best First Film of 2010 by the New York Film Critics Circle. Michôd’s second feature, The Rover (2014), starring Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He wrote and directed the 2017 feature film War Machine, starring Brad Pitt, for Netflix and co-wrote and executive-produced the 2019 Hulu limited-series adaptation of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22. His fourth feature film, The King (2019), starring Timothée Chalamet and Joel Edgerton, premiered at the Venice Film Festival. He is currently completing his fifth movie, Wizards!, starring Pete Davidson and Franz Rogowski, for A24.

The Criterion Collection calls New York-based Isabel Sandoval ‘one of the most exciting and multitalented filmmakers on the indie scene with a bold approach to cinematic style.’ She has directed three features, including Señorita (2011), which premiered at Locarno, and Independent Spirit Award Nominee Lingua Franca (2019), which debuted at Venice. In 2022, Sandoval joined the prestigious Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and starred in the César-winning documentary short Maria Schneider, 1983. TV directing credits include Under the Banner of Heaven (2022) starring Andrew Garfield and The Summer I Turned Pretty (2022). She is developing her next feature, Tropical Gothic.

Edouard Waintrop has been an Artistic Director of several renowned international film festivals which include the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes, a post he held for seven years and Fribourg International Film Festival in Switzerland for four years. He has also been a respected critic critic at the French newspaper Liberation for more than 26 years. He has been a big supporter of contemporary Indian cinema internationally.

Kazakh film critic and researcher Dr Gulnara Abikeyeva was an artistic director of the Eurasia International Film Festival in Almaty from 2005 to 2013. She launched the film magazine Asia-kino, served as editor-in-chief of Territoriya Kino, and produced TV programmes about Kazakh cinema. As a member of FIPRESCI and NETPAC, she is a frequent jury member at different international film festivals. She was a Fulbright scholar in the USA (2001–2002) and delivered lectures at Pittsburgh, Harvard, Yale, and Tufts Universities. Recently she was a research scholar in Japan (2018–2019) and delivered lectures at Hokkaido, Tokyo, and Kyoto Universities. She is the author of ten books about cinema, mostly about Kazakhstan and Central Asian countries. Her first book, New Kazakh Cinema, was published in 1998, –followed by Cinema of Central Asia: 1990–2001, which won the White Elephant Award, presented by the Guild of Film Critics of Russia. The book, Nation-Building in Kazakhstan and Other Central Asian States, and How This Process is Reflected in Cinematography (2006) received the prestigious national prize, ‘Kulager’, as the best book of 2007 in Kazakhstan. In 2013, she had three international publications: Cinema in Central Asia: Rewriting Cultural Histories, co-edited by Michael Rouland and Birgit Beumers (Great Britain); The Unknown New Wave of Central Asian Cinema, co-edited by Kim Ji-Seok (South Korea); and Makhmalbaf’s Film House (Russia). Currently, she is a professor at Turan University in Almaty, where she delivers lectures on film history and film theory.

Latika Padgaonkar is a columnist, editor, translator, former Joint Director of Osian’s Cinefan Film Festival, and former Executive Editor of Cinemaya, the Asian film quarterly. She was a foreign correspondent for The Telegraph in Paris in the 1980s; she has also worked for UNESCO in New Delhi and for the National Commission for Women’s Media Group. Currently, she is a member of the Media Foundation.

A PhD from the University of Sorbonne, Paris, she taught at Fergusson College in Pune and Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. A jury member at several national and international film festivals and for the National Film Awards as well, she has organised – as a PIC member – film festivals at the National Film Archive of India.

Latika Padgaonkar has co-edited – among other books – Being & Becoming: The Cinemas of Asia, An Asian Film Journey: Selections from Cinemaya, Kenji Mizogchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema, and Making News, Breaking News, Her Own Way. She has translated The French in India: From Diamond Traders to Sanskrit Scholars and Sujata Bajaj – L’Ordre du Monde.

Nashen Moodley is in his twelfth year as Festival Director of Sydney Film Festival. During his tenure, the festival has grown vastly. Moodley’s career in film programming has encompassed many leadership roles, including Manager at the Durban International Film Festival (2001–2011) and Programming Consultant for Dubai International Film Festival (2005–2017). He has been a jury member at various film festivals worldwide, including San Sebastián, Busan, Toronto, Rotterdam, El Gouna, Durban, Sarajevo, and Tokyo film festivals. Born in South Africa in 1978, Moodley studied English and philosophy at the University of Natal and worked as a journalist before turning to film programming.

Aditya Shrikrishna is a freelance film critic and journalist from Chennai. He has been a published writer since 2013, and his work has appeared in The Hindu, Frontline, The Signal, The New Indian Express, Vogue, Fifty Two, Mint Lounge, Film Companion, The Wire, The Quint and Economic & Political Weekly. He has covered film festivals such as TIFF, Berlinale, and NYFF as accredited press. He is also the co-founder of The Other Banana, a podcast on South Indian cinema. A collection of his work is available on www.adityashrikrishna.com

Senior critic, columnist and author Bharathi S. Pradhan is the former editor of Star & Style, Showtime, Lehren, Film Street Journal, Movie and Savvy (Consulting Editor). She continues to be a Sunday columnist with The Telegraph and is a critic and show host with Lehren Networks. She is also a Founding Member of the Film Critics Guild and was an advisory member of the Censor Board of Film Certification. She has written several inspirational books, including Colas, Cars & Communal Harmony: A Doff to Bollywood’s Secular Colours, Heartfelt (on how the mind can heal the body), Anything But Khamosh: The Shatrughan Sinha Biography, Ramesh Chandra Agarwal (on the man who built Dainik Bhaskar, a leading daily of India), and Priyanka Chopra: The Dark Horse. She has ideated for Balaji telefilms, curated awards and has been a member of diverse juries. She has also made The Rebel Dancer, a documentary on a firebrand Kuchipudi exponent.

Stutee Ghosh is an award-winning radio jockey, having won the prestigious India Radio Forum Best RJ Award. She started off while she was still doing her post-graduation in English Literature at Delhi University. She forayed into film reviews and criticism and has been associated with TV and digital media as well. Born and brought up in Delhi, she is currently Head of Programming for Fever FM Mumbai. She hosts The Superwomaniya Show, which is aired nationally. She is also a film critic and a Celeb Chat show host with the Hindustan Times. She conceptualised and hosts the first-ever show on radio dedicated to books called Stutee’s Book Club, where she regularly features bestselling authors talking about their latest books. Ghosh has been part of film festival juries. As a member of the Film Critic’s Guild, she curated the Best Bengali Film Awards at the first-ever Critic’s Choice Film Awards 2019.