28th International Film Festival of Kerala 2023

Pablo César is Argentine, born in Buenos Aires in 1962.
He is the only Latin American filmmaker who has dedicated himself for more than 30 years to dealing with African themes, filming in Africa, and addressing issues related to Afro-descendants and the African cultural legacy in Argentine society. Pablo has been dedicated to professional cinema since 1987. He directed 16 long feature films, of which 9 are co-productions with African nations, making him a pioneer and unique in Latin America, and also 2 co-productions with India and 2 long documentaries.He has filmed in Tunisia, Cape Verde, Mali, Benin, Angola, Ethiopia, Namibia, Morocco.
Pablo has given seminars and workshops on Latin America-Africa film cooperation in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Togo and Egypt. In addition, he has two films in co-production with India.
He is professor at the Universidad del Cine de Buenos Aires since 1992. He has won international awards and has also participated as a jury at the festivals of Amiens (France), Montreal (Canada, Festival de Cine Joven), Kelibia (Tunisia), Huy (Belgium), Hyderabad (India), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Nador (Morocco), Abuja (Nigeria), Carthage (Tunisia) and IFFI Goa (India) and Pune (India).

Pan Nalin is a writer, director, and producer. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Oscars) in its esteemed Directors’ Branch, Nalin is also a member of the French Academy of Arts and Techniques of Cinema (Cesars).  He is celebrated worldwide for his empowering, eclectic, deeply emotional, and visually striking movies including “Samsara”  “Valley of Flowers” “Faith Connections” and “Angry Indian Goddesses.” His latest; Last Film Show (Chhello Show) received an Oscar Shortlist Nomination as the Best International Film 2023. His films have collectively won more than 70 international awards at festivals like AFI, Toronto, Tribeca, Busan, Sundance, Valladolid, Melbourne, Rome among others. Nalin and his company Monsoon Films have coproduced films with USA, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, and New Zealand. Nalin’s films have been theatrically distributed in 80 countries with major commercial success through partnerships with distributors like Miramax and Samuel Goldwyn Films USA, Shochiku Japan, Medusa Studios Italy, Orange Studio France, and Pandora Film Germany.

Vidyashankar N was the Artistic Director of Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFes), which completed 12 editions. He is a former President and Secretary of Suchitra Film Society in Bengaluru.
He has been lecturing and writing on World Cinema, Indian and Kannada cinema for over three decades and writes regularly for the media. He is a member of FIPRESCI and NETPAC. He was Managing Editor of a literary journal in Kannada and the editor of a Film Society journal. He has compiled a book on European Film theories in Kannada and edited a book on African Cinema. He was a chairperson of the NETPAC International Jury at Busan Film Festival, member of FIPRESCI Critics Jury at the 70th Cannes International Film Festival apart from numerous festivals around the globe. He was invited to participate in a colloquium on Russian Cinema St. Petersburg, Russia in 2019.

Udaya Prasanna Vithanage is a Sri Lankan filmmaker. He is considered one of the pioneers of the third generation of Sri Lankan cinema. He has directed eight feature films including Death on a Full Moon Day (1997), August Sun (2003), Flowers of the Sky (2008) and With You, Without You (2012) and won many prestigious national and international awards and have also been commercially successful in Sri Lanka. In his early theatre work, he translated and produced plays by international writers, adapted works of world literature to film. He has battled against the censorship in
Sri Lanka and worked as an educator of cinema who has conducted many Master classes in the subcontinent for young filmmakers and enthusiasts.

Mara Matta holds a Ph.D. in South and East Asian studies and currently is a researcher in South Asian Studies at ‘Sapienza’ Università di Roma, where she teaches Modern Literatures of the Indian Subcontinent. Her researches focus on indigenous literatures, cinemas and performing arts along/across South Asian borderlands. She works on writings and cultural productions by South Asian migrants in Italy, especially Bangladeshis. Her interest in theatre and cinema as tools of social change has led her to meet different theatre activists and filmmakers in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Italy and UK. She is a member of the NETPAC and of the Archive of Migrant Memories (AMM, Rome). She is currently working on Bidrohinis: Writings of Adivasi Women of Bangladesh. The Diary of Kalpana Chakma and Other Literary Dimensions of Dissent. Her recent publications include a monograph on social and political theatre in Nepal: Nepal: A Theatre for Better Reasons.

Vidhu Vincent is an Indian film director, writer, journalist and theatre activist from Kerala. Her debut film Manhole won her the Kerala State Film Award for Best Director. It also won awards at IFFK and the John Abraham award. Vidhu became the first woman from Kerala to have a film screened in the history of the festival. She became the first woman to win a State Award in the category. She received the 2020 Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for Travelogue. In 2010, Vincent became the first president of Penkoottu, an organisation which highlights the plight of women employees in the unorganised sector.

T V Chandran is an Indian film director, screenwriter, and actor, predominantly working in Malayalam cinema. He did the lead role in P A Backer’s highly acclaimed Kabani Nadi Chuvannappol (1975). He made his directorial debut with the unreleased feature Krishnan Kutty, and followed this with Hemavin Kadhalargal. Chandran came into prominence after Alicinte Anveshanam (1989), which was nominated for the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. This was followed with Ponthan Mada. Chandran is most known for his art-house films which have references to history and undertones of politics and feminism. He is also known for his trilogy on 2002 Gujarat riots, Kathavasheshan, Vilapangalkappuram and Bhoomiyude Avakashikal. Other acclaimed films include Mangamma, Dany and Paadam Onnu: Oru Vilapam (2003). Chandran has won six National Film Awards and ten Kerala State Film Awards. In 2023, Chandran was awarded the J C Daniel Award, the highest award in Malayalam cinema.

Amitava Ghosh is the founder secretary of Celluloid Chapter Jamshedpur which was established in 1985. Celluloid Chapter in Jharkhand is one of the biggest and most active film societies in Eastern India region. He has been functioning as the general secretary of the Federation of Film Societies of India since 2016. Apart from film society activities Amitava Ghosh is a renowned trade union leader in the public sector banking industry. He is actively involved in many philanthropic activities especially in the field of art and culture in the vast tribal areas of Jharkhand.

Pierre-Simon Gutman is the deputy editor-in-chief of L’Avant-scène cinéma and professor of film history and directing at ESRA (Ecole Supérieure de Réalisation Audiovisuelle) Paris and Brussels. After
studying literature and cinema at the Sorbonne, he defended a thesis on the American filmmaker Michael Cimino at the University of Paris VII (“The Creation of an American Community in the Cinema of Michael Cimino”) and taught cinema at the University (Paris VII, Nancy 2). He has collaborated and published numerous articles for Les Fiches du cinéma, Trois Couleurs, Eclipses and  L’Annuel du cinéma. For seven years, he was a short- and feature-length selector for the Cannes Film Festival’s Critics’ Week and directed several short films himself. He is a regular speaker in cinemas and festivals.

Dr Minakshi Dutta is an Assistant Professor at the department of Cultural Studies, Assam Women’s University, Jorhat, Assam. She is an active member of FIPRESCI, India. She has published many articles on cinema in reputed International and National journals. She has also authored/edited books on Assamese cinema.

Melis Behlil is an Associate Professor and Chair of Radio, Television and Cinema Department at Kadir Has University in Istanbul. She has published on media industries and contemporary Turkish cinema. She has also been a visiting scholar at MIT and a Research Associate at Stockholm University. In addition to teaching and other academic duties, she writes film reviews for various publications, co-hosts a weekly radio show, and is a member of the Turkish Film Critics Association. She is also a board member for the Turkish Film Critics Association.

Rita Azevedo Gomes is a Portuguese director, screenwriter and winner of several film festivals, including the Torino International Festival of Young Cinema, Caminhos do Cinema Portuguese, DocLisboa and the Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival. She is also known as a graphic artist, being responsible for several of the publications of the Cinemateca Portuguesa, where she is responsible for the programming and the exhibition space. She has worked primarily as an artistic director, set designer and costume designer in plays such as Sophocles’ Antigone and Chekhov’s The Seagull; and in operas such as Henry Purcell’s King Arthur and Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. She also works as a costume designer, assistant director and scene photographer in films by other directors, including Werner Schröeter, Manoel de Oliveira, Luís Noronha da Costa, Valeria Sarmiento and Eduardo Gregório.

Dr Boukary Sawadogo is an Associate Professor of Cinema Studies and Black Studies at The City College of New York. He is an African cinema scholar and media professional who has published extensively on African cinema, including film reviews, articles, book chapters, and books. His three books on African cinema are required readings in several courses on African cinema that are taught at American universities. He has experience serving as a jury member in film festivals in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Africa. Dr. Sawadogo is also a regular guest speaker at universities, and research and cultural organizations. Beyond film and media industries, Dr Boukary Sawadogo’s work is widening in scope and depth to interrogate the place and trajectory of Africa today in the world through the diasporas. In this respect, he has authored Africans in Harlem: An Untold New York Story (2022).

Kiki Fung is film critic, curator, and Programme Consultant for Hong Kong International Film Festival. She was former Head Programmer for Brisbane International Film Festival and its successor, Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival. She has guest-curated for the Brisbane Festival and Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Before moving to Australia in 2010, she served at the Hong Kong Film Archive for seven years in areas of programme organisation, management and publication editing, having assisted in editing three volumes of Hong Kong Filmography, among others. She is a member of the Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC) and Hong Kong Film Critics Society; her recent essays published in Ain Ling Wong (ed)’s The Cinema of Wong Kar-wai and HKIFF Society (ed)’s Naruse Mikio, 110th Anniversary.