Shiva Krish is a filmmaker who began his career as an assistant director on the Tamil feature Oru Naal Iravil. His volunteer work during the 2015 Chennai floods led to collaborations with nonprofits and the making of short documentaries on demonetization in India and schizophrenia. He later worked as first assistant director on the acclaimed Amazon Prime Video series Harmony with A. R. Rahman. Amma’s Pride is his first independent documentary short.

Chithra Jeyaram is a Tamil filmmaker and former physical therapist whose films find the extraordinary in everyday family life. Her features include FOREIGN PUZZLE (2019), on motherhood through cancer, and LOVE CHAOS KIN (2025), on open adoption. She edited Sex Work, It’s Just a Job (2025) and shot/edited One Thousand and One Berber Nights (2023).

An adjunct at NYU, she is an alum of Visions du Réel’s Rough Cut Lab, Chicken & Egg Accelerator, BGDM Artist Fellowship, the Gotham Documentary Fellowship, and a Jerome Foundation grantee. Her work has screened on PBS, CBSN, Apple TV, and at SXSW, BlackStar, and DOC NYC. She has completed 15 marathons. She splits time between Chennai and New York City and is writing THE LONGEST SUMMER.

D’Lo is an LA-based queer/trans actor, writer, and comic working across stand-up, solo theater, plays, film, and poetry. His solo shows—Ramble-Ations, D’FunQT, and To T, or not To T—have toured internationally, and his stand-up hour D’FaQTo Life tours the college circuit.

His work has been featured in LA Times, The Guardian, NBC, and The Advocate; he’s appeared on CNN and NPR’s Code Switch, and was a staple of trans representation on BuzzFeed and Fusion. He’s the subject of the award-winning documentary PERFORMING GIRL. D’Lo leads “writing for performance” and “healing trauma through comedy” workshops and created the “Coming Out, Coming Home” series for South Asian and immigrant LGBTQ organizations nationwide.

Ahaanaa Malhotra is a documentary filmmaker, impact producer, and Columbia Journalism School alum (’22) who uses film to drive change through urban and grassroots engagement. She leads the #PathToPride campaign—launched in January 2025 across five Indian cities, expanding to the U.S. this fall, and culminating in a large-scale grassroots effort across Tamil Nadu’s villages. Her work explores gender equality, LGBTQIA+ rights, childhood, and identity.