Ruchir Joshi is an Indian writer, filmmaker, and columnist for The Telegraph, India Today, and other major publications. Best known for his debut novel, ‘The Last Jet-Engine Laug’h (2001), he is also the editor of India’s first anthology of contemporary erotica ‘Electric Feather: The Tranquebar Book of Erotic Stories’, published by Tranquebar Press/Westland. Joshi is the director of international award-winning films including Egaro Mile (Eleven Miles) – a film on Bauls in 1992, Memories of Milk City, and Tales from Planet Kolkata.
Vyjayanthi V. Rao is an anthropologist, writer and curator, teaching at the Yale School of Architecture. Her work explores the role of culture and speculation in shaping built and living environments. Her understanding of speculation expands beyond the financial realm into practices that center around the imagination such as design and art. In addition to observant participation through fieldwork, her research draws on sound, image, mapping and collaborations with visual artists and architects. She has published extensively on these subjects, co-curated exhibitions for the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2022) and the Center for Architecture in New York (2023) and participated as an artist in the Kochi Biennale (2016) and the Chicago Biennale of Architecture (2023). Since 2023, she has been one of the Editors in Chief of the journal Public Culture (Duke University Press).
Anand Patwardhan has been making documentary films for over five decades pursuing issues at the crux of social and political life in India. Many of his films were at one time or another banned by state television channels and became the subject of censorship rulings that Anand successfully challenged in court. Active in movements for communal harmony and against unsustainable development, militarism and nuclear nationalism, Anand describes himself as “a non-serious human being forced by circumstances to make serious films.”
Aradhana Seth is a Filmmaker, producer, visual artist and photographer. She has worked as a production designer on over 15 feature films and art directed The Darjeeling Limited, London Has Fallen and The Bourne Supremacy. Seth produced A Suitable Boy, a television series for BBC, airing on Netflix. She has directed 20 documentary films including DAM/AGE, A film with Arundhati Roy and a BBC Omnibus on Vikram Seth. As an artist and photographer, she has had solo shows at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, and Sunapranta, Goa. Her work has been exhibited at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna; Grosvenor Gallery, London; Vadehra Art Gallery, Instituto Italiano de Cultura and Khoj, New Delhi. Her ongoing public art project, The Merchant of Images, has travelled widely in India and abroad. Throughout her career, she has paid detailed attention to the visual language of the everyday locale, documenting hand-painted signs in India and collaborating with fellow artists to recreate vernacular expressions on film sets and art galleries alike. Her book SADAK. Hand painted street signs in India (Humboldt Books, 2023), showcases a part of Aradhana Seth’s archive photographed over the past few decades.
Gyan Correa is a Mumbai based writer, director, and producer, having produced and directed over 500 TVCs, Corporates, TV, and feature films. His maiden feature film, The Good Road, Gujarati 2013 – written and directed by him, had won a National Award and was voted to be India’s Oscar submission, in 2013. The film presents a fascinating, unexpected glimpse into the heart of an unseen India, where acts of great compassion are shown to utter strangers. Currently, he is pursuing several documentary projects and principal photography for his next feature film which commenced in 2022.