Meet the judges.

Elle León Nostas (they/them) is the founder of Aymara Films, an artist-led studio built to uplift artists and craft propulsive cinema. Less than two years in, the Bolivian-Palestinian-American writer, director, and producer leads a slate of more than 20 film, television, and animation projects across development, production, and post-production, and the company finances short films from the next generation of filmmakers.

The slate includes Rahul Roye's Aman, which Elle León co-wrote and produced. The film world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and now competes in the BFI London Film Festival's Short Film Competition. Their own directorial debut short, Savior, took the Bruce Corwin Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and qualified for Academy Award consideration.

As executive producer of Alexander Ullom's feature debut It Ends, they helped carry a SXSW 2025 discovery to a Fantasia Best First Feature win, Certified Fresh reviews, and a worldwide theatrical release from NEON. Elle León's taste is their calling card: they find distinctive voices early and carry them to the world's biggest stages.

A film programmer with a decade of experience, she has curated for membership clubs, festivals, pop-ups and film clubs across India. For over five years she has led the members-only film program at Soho House Mumbai, shaping a monthly slate of 30 titles that move between new releases, festival favourites, world cinema, independent Indian cinema, shorts and documentaries.

Alongside the screenings, she curates the conversations around them, from post-screening Q&As to panel discussions. She also works as a wellness event consultant, helping companies create meaningful, thoughtfully designed experiences for urban audiences.

Ananyabrata is a Mumbai-based writer-director. His debut feature film, Kaisi Ye Paheli, premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival in 2025 and won Best Director (Indian) at the Yellowstone International Film Festival 2025. He is also the author of the novel Split Second and wrote the Hindi lyrics for Ricky Martin’s Vente Pa’ Ca.

Alongside writing and filmmaking, Ananyabrata has acted in Ram Madhvani’s The Waking of a Nation on SonyLIV and Nikkhil Advani’s The Revolutionaries on Amazon Prime Video.

Nidhi Saxena is an Indian filmmaker whose work explores human vulnerability and existential themes through a distinctly poetic lens. With a formal background in sculpture and fine art, she transitioned to cinema after studying at the Film and Television Institute of India. Her cinematic language often transcends traditional narrative structures in search of the abstract and spiritual.

Nidhi is the first Indian woman director to receive the Asian Cinema Fund (Post-Production) and the first Indian woman Biennale College Cinema recipient. She has also worked extensively with marginalized women through initiatives supported by the UN Population Fund.

Triparna Banerjee is a writer, director, and producer committed to bringing stories from the margins to global audiences. Her work has screened at leading international film festivals, including Toronto, Busan, CPH:DOX, Palm Springs, and Rotterdam, and has been selected for film forums such as L’Atelier Cinéfondation at Cannes, HAF Hong Kong, and APM Busan. She is a Film Independent Global Media Makers fellow.

Her films have received National Awards in India. She works across fiction and documentary, exploring gender within Indian social realities and often weaving genre with elements of magic realism, horror, and fantasy.

Achal Bhatt is a filmmaker, director and entrepreneur with a diverse background spanning finance, traditional filmmaking and emerging creative technologies. After spending over six years in the Asset Management industry in New York City, he made a decisive shift to pursue his passion for cinema, going on to work across feature films, web series and advertisements.

As a director, Achal has helmed several advertising campaigns, collaborating with leading brands and some of the industry's top agencies. His approach to filmmaking is rooted in a deep appreciation for the craft of visual storytelling, with a keen eye for cinematography, composition, colour, performance and the finer details that shape a compelling cinematic experience.

He is the founder of 706 Pictures, a production house focused on end-to-end film and advertising production, and Poveste AI Studio, an AI-driven filmmaking studio built on the belief that emerging technologies can expand the creative possibilities of cinema. Through Poveste, he has worked extensively on projects associated with Netflix, Amazon and Sony LIV, while exploring the integration of AI-generated imagery into live-action film productions.

His work focuses on bringing together the precision and craft of traditional filmmaking with the possibilities of artificial intelligence, with the ambition to help shape the future of cinema and visual storytelling in India and globally.

An award-winning Moroccan director, scriptwriter, and film scholar (University of Oxford) pioneering the “Amazigh-horror” sub-genre. Co-founder of Native Line, Morocco’s first dedicated genre house, she combines scholarly rigor with creative vision to scale Arab-African-Amazigh genre cinema into an internationally viable IP brand.

Her critically acclaimed film AICHA qualified for the Academy Award long-list, earning three Best Director awards among its 20+ international accolades. Sanaa serves as Head of Programming for Poland’s AfryKamera Film Festival and holds memberships with both the Moroccan National Producers Chamber and Africa No Filter.

Ashmaki Acharya did her Masters degree in English Literature (St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University) and has studied at The Film and Television Institute of India, Pune (Diploma in Direction).

As a freelance independent filmmaker she has produced, directed and scripted numerous documentary and short fiction films and made television shows for Channel V, Aaj Tak, Doordarshan, Sony TV, Star Plus and Zee TV, besides live events, corporate and advertising films. She was the Dialogue Writer for the feature films “Khayal Gatha”, directed by Kumar Shahani, and “Tunnu Ki Tina”, directed by Paresh Kamdar.

Ashmaki has been the Head of the Direction Department at Whistling Woods International, Mumbai. She regularly conducts workshops and classes at institutions such as the National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad), SRFTII (Kolkata), MAEER’s MIT Institute of Design (Pune) and others in India and abroad. She was invited to The Audiovisual Corrida at ESAV Toulouse (France) to present a paper, and in 2015 she led a delegation to Beijing University (China) for the Looking China Youth Film Project.

She has been on the film selection panel of the Children’s Film Society of India, and was a jury member of the 12th IDPA Awards 2017 and the Cinematographer K Vaikunth 1st State and National/International Short Film Competition 2026.

Uzair Surhio is a filmmaker and film programmer dedicated to championing untold South Asian stories. Through his films, he explores overlooked narratives that reveal the intricate social and cultural dimensions of the region. He also programs for other festivals, including Tasveer Film Festival and the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal, curating diverse and thought-provoking cinema.

Basundhara Ghosh runs a popular Instagram page called Gangs of Cinepur that focuses on discussions around cinema, and considers the online cinephile community an integral part of film appreciation. Professionally, she is an Assistant Professor of Physics at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru.

Aastha Verma is an India-born, Dubai-raised and Los Angeles-bred Director and Producer and Co-Founder of Saadhvish Films.

With more than forty fiction short and feature films to her credit, including The Last Rights, was qualified for the 95TH Oscars Nominations. Her most recent non-fiction work includes broadcast and streaming shows for National Geographic, Endemol Shine-Banijay Asia, Applause Entertainment, The International Cricket Council and Amazon Prime Video. She recently closed a Fiction series for BBC Studios as Showrunner. She has also Produced a slate of Music Videos for Indian Pop-star Diljit Dosanjh’s Album ‘G.O.A.T’

Verma has over seven years of experience across all formats in the Middle East, India and the USA, with her work exhibited in eminent festivals globally. She continues to develop a slate of home grown fiction and non-fiction features and TV shows dedicated to elevating South Asian Diaspora and Women's voices.

Neeraj Churi is a UK-based film producer of Indian-American origin. He started his film production journey to produce and promote films about LGBTQ+ communities after realizing the limited opportunities, especially in South Asia. His slate includes narrative and documentary features and shorts in India and the UK. His feature film, A Place of Our Own, won the audience choice award at SXSW 2023 in the USA. His short Holy Curse is on its run for the Academy awards. His WIP feature was invited to the Cannes Market. Other noteworthy titles include Sheer Qorma, Queer Parivaar, and many more. Through this production company, Lotus Visual Productions, he teams up with organizations in India to give grants and mentorships to underrepresented filmmakers for making their short films. He is part of the Tasveer Film Market, which aims to provide partnership and financing opportunities for the global South Asian film industry. An alumnus of the New York Film Academy, he also holds degrees in information science management.

Ashish Sawhny studied Film & Drama at the University of Reading, UK and has been directing, producing, acting & writing since 1992. Post 20 years in advertising film-making, Ashish moved into longer format film with corporates, documentary & ethnographic films across International & Indian markets.

With a focus on gender & sexuality, Ashish has produced/directed a range of documentary stories for various platforms since 2012 that have won awards & are screened at festivals & NGOs, as well as a number of advocacy related work. Over 2020-21, Ashish was ‘Series Director’ on ‘The Big Day’, Netflix India’s first documentary series, that was at #1 in India and trending in 8 other countries.

Additionally, Ashish is certified and has been practicing as a mental health counsellor, with a focus on person-centred counselling and queer affirmative practices, since 2022. Ashish has also been hosting “The Queer Podcast”, a series available across audio & video platforms that is now in its 2nd season, as well as doing cameos in films such as ‘Luck by Chance’, ‘Gully Boy’, ‘The Archie’s’, ‘Made in Heaven’ & ‘Kho Gaye Hum Kahan?’. He has been writing for commissioned anthologies and magazines as an independent writer the last few years, along with writing & developing projects for OTT platforms.

The young, Int Emmy® nominated filmmaker believes in the power of storytelling by bringing diverse characters into the most gripping narratives. Karn is a storyteller at heart; a perfect blend of creative, technical and leadership skills. He has experience in directing, producing and marketing content for various platforms including theatrical, TV, digital & OTT. Karn has worked on some of the biggest OTT shows of the country like Aarya, Showtime, The Empire and Trial, to name a few. Karn was born in Jaipur, Rajasthan and is now settled in Mumbai, India with his dog KOKO!

Elizabeth Wood Coldicutt, Producer of Mary Pickford, The Muse of the Movies, is president and co-founder of the Caroline Victoria Coldicutt Arts Foundation (CVC ARTS), a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization located in Palm Desert, California. CVC ARTS is dedicated to student arts education and provides funding for art scholarships, awards and art outreach programs to various US and international schools. The foundation’s mission is to empower student artists in all their creative endeavors including visual and fine arts, dance, theatre, media/film, photography and writing. Ms. Wood Coldicuttʼs life-long heroine is Mary Pickford which inspired her to produce Mary Pickford – A Star (1996), StarPower – The Creation of United Artists (1997) with Classic Vision Entertainment and Mary Pickford, The Muse of the Movies, a collaborative effort with Producer/Director Nicholas Eliopoulos. This documentary honors Ms. Pickford’s pioneering work and artistry during the birth of the American cinema. The film has been screened at ten film festivals including Pordenone Film Festival, Italy and Telluride Film Festival, winning an Honorary Satellite Award from the International Press Academy in 2009, Best Film at the Universal Film Festival in 2014, and a 2017 Emmy Award Nomination for “Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.” Ms. Wood Coldicutt is currently producing Salvador Dali – Inside the Hollywood Years, a feature film documentary which will explore the surreal artist’s film collaborations and friendships with Hollywood’s elite filmmakers and stars.

Nominated for two News and Documentary Emmy Awards, Marta Cunningham is an accomplished actor turned first time filmmaker. A native of Northern California, she was so moved by the story of Lawrence King’s murder that she became embedded in Oxnard and soon began filming those whose lives were touched by the tragedy. The result was “Valentine Road”, a feature length documentary that was selected to compete in the U.S. Documentary Competition in the 2013 Sundance Film Festival and later premiered on HBO in October of 2013. “Valentine Road” has traveled to more than two hundred festivals, accruing thirteen awards. It is currently available on HBO GO.

Nikki Levy is a film executive — Head of Scripted Content at DreamWorks TV — and a television host. She is the creator, producer, and host of the Los Angeles based comedy show Don’t Tell My Mother, a show where writers and performers in the film and television industry tell stories they would never want their mothers to hear. She also serves as Vice President at Fox’s Wedge Works World Wide.

Alison Fraser is a two-time Tony Award nominee for The Secret Garden and Romance/Romance, a Drama Desk Award nominee for both The Secret Garden, and First Daughter Suite and a Carbonell Award winner for Romance/Romance. Fraser is a Callaway Award-winner for Heartbreak House. She played “Tessie Tura” in the New York City Center and Broadway productions of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone under the direction of Arthur Laurents. She was the first ever recipient of Philadelphia’s Barrymore Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of “The Blonde” in Marion Adler, Scott Wentworth and Craig Boehmler’s film noir musical.

Anjul Nigam recently completed “Crown Vic,” serving as its lead producer with Alec Baldwin and starring Thomas Jane, Luke Kleintank, Bridget Moynahan and David Krumholtz. The movie had its World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival garnering the biggest sale from over 100 feature films, and Screen Media subsequently released it theatrically in twenty US cities and is currently available OnDemand on all major platforms. Most recently, Nigam served as the lead producer on the feature film “Bayou Caviar,” Oscar Winner Cuba Gooding Jr.’s directorial debut in which Gooding also stars opposite Oscar Winner Richard Dreyfuss, Famke Janssen, and Katharine McPhee.

Has worn many hats in her career, from Executive Producer of International Film festival to Vice President of an International Security Company. Her measure of success is to see others achieve their goals and dreams. She also holds a burning desire to give back in a big way and leave something memorable for the generations. Her idea of joy is to see hard work, honesty and integrity being rewarded.

Todd Waring is an American actor, best known for replacing Tom Hanks in the roles in both the television series version of Nothing in Common, as well as Splash, Too. He has played minor roles in various films and television series, including The Stiller and Meara Show, Wings and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He has acted in Netflix’s American Crime Story , Scandal and Recently he is acting in Apple Tv + Tv series – Servant Directed by legendary hollywood Director M. Night Shyamalan.

Sheeba Chadha is a theatre and film actor with a large body of work in the OTT world as well. She has worked as a collaborative artist across mediums for over two and half decades. Her work in the theatre includes plays like C for Clown(directed by Rajat Kapoor), Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and The Blue Mug(directed by Atul Kumar) and Hedda Gabler and Far Away(directed by Rehaan Engineer). She was granted The Charles Wallace scholarship for theatre , which funded a summer course at The Royal Academy for Dramatic Arts and an apprenticeship with The Big Telly theatre company in Northern Ireland .

One of her most recent work in the theatre includes a devised, solo performance titled ‘Sleep’ performed and directed by herself, inspired by the writings of Haruki Murakami. Last year In December she created a performance piece commissioned by the Serendipity Festival in Goa, for which She created a theatre script adapted from Adam Phillips ‘ book, ‘Houdini s Box’ . She also directed the piece and acted in it . Sheeba has also had an illustrious career in cinema and television and the digital world spanning over two decades. She has been a part of several block buster films over the years like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Dil Se, Luck by Chance, Delhi 6, Talaash, Murder, Dum Laga ke Haisa, Raees , Raid , Jabariya Jodi, Badhai Ho , Gully Boy ,Zero etc . She just finished shooting for Sikhya Entertainment’s film , Paglait and Abundantia ‘s film Shakuntala Devi., Mc Guffin Films film Sharmaji Namkeen . Her international projects are West is West, What will People say , Sahasi Chhori etc . She is also a part of Mira Nairs web Series based on the The Suitable Boy . Her recent web series include Mirzapur and Banish Bandits for Amazon , Tajmahal 1989 on Netflix and Permanent Roommates for TVF , to name a few .Inspite of all these commitments,Sheeba continues to keep one foot firmly embedded in the world of theatre.

Nicholas Eliopoulos, a two-time Emmy-winning producer, editor and director, won “Best Film” at the Universal International Film Festival for his documentary covering the first 25-year history of American Cinema and its first movie star entitled Mary Pickford, The Muse of the Movies which was narrated by Michael York. The film was produced with fellow Producer Elizabeth Wood Coldicutt and sold to Turner Classic Movies after finishing runs in over 10 World Film Festivals, including Telluride and Toronto, plus the prestigious Pordenone International Film Festival in Italy. Mr. Eliopoulos’ previous documentaries, Vision of a New World starring Marsha Mason and Ted Danson plus his Russia, A Century of Change about the 100-year history of Russia ending with the fall of the Soviet Union which is narrated by Sharon Gless, were both internationally-reviewed and well received.

Mariana Méndez Alejandre is a Mexican film producer based in New York City. She has produced several acclaimed short films including Zero Hour written by Oscar and BAFTA nominee Guillermo Arriaga. Her latest film under her production company banner Mindsoup Entertainment, Humo (Smoke), was shortlisted for the 96th Academy Awards® after premiering at the Annecy International Film Festival.

Scott Moore is a feature film writer and director best known for The Hangover and Bad Moms. Since 1999 he has been working with long time writing partner Jon Lucas.

Moore co-wrote The Hangover, winner of the 2010 Golden Globe for Best Comedy. The script earned him a nomination for Best Original Screenplay from both the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA).

Moore co-wrote and co-directed the sleeper hit Bad Moms which was the highest grossing R-rated comedy of the year and won the People’s Choice Award for Best Comedy of 2016. Following the success of Bad Moms, Moore co-wrote and co-directed the sequel, A Bad Moms Christmas. Moore and Lucas are currently working on a third movie in the franchise, tentatively entitled Bad Moms’ Moms.

Moore’s other credits include Four Christmases, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, The Change-Up, Office Christmas Party and 21 & Over, which he also co-directed.

Moore was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. He is an alumnus of Punahou School and the University of Colorado where he studied film and economics.