Alka Raghuram: Director, Writer, Producer
Alka Raghuram is a filmmaker and a multidisciplinary artist who tells stories in an effort to make sense of the world, hoping they would create moments of empathy. She is currently finishing a feature documentary, Burqa Boxers, about Muslim women boxers in Kolkata India. Burqa Boxers was developed with the support of ITVS’ Diversity Development Fund, and produced with funding from CNC, France, and Vision Sud Est., Switzerland. It was awarded the top prize Grant Open Doors at the Locarno Film Festival co-production market in 2011.
In 2012 Alka created a photo, video and art installation based on the project at the Locarno Film Festival. In September 2014, she collaborated with dancers Pandit Chitresh Das (Indian, Kathak) and Antonio Hidalgo Paz (Flamenco) to create video vignettes for their performance Yatra (Journey) comprising of poetry, photography, painting and calligraphy about the historical connection between the two dance forms. The performance premiered at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
Her fiction project “The Conqueror” was invited to Berlin Talent Project Market and Tribeca All Access, where Alka was awarded the L’Oreal Woman of Worth Vision Filmmaker Award. Her short films Tired of Dancing, Panchali and The Ant and The Monkey have screened at various festivals in the US and abroad. Panchali received the John Gutman award for innovation in cinema and was a regional finalist in the Student Academy Awards (2004). The Ant and The Monkey was nominated for the Princess Grace Award in 2005. Her paintings have been exhibited in galleries and Museums in New York.
24 Images, France: Producer
24 images has produced more than 120 documentary films, 7 short films and several recordings of live shows with an objective to produce films that are universal in their subject matter while being attached to specific and unique cultures and people. They aim to make cinema fresh and engaging, with ambitious and daring artistic approaches, and have, in the past, worked with filmmakers like Walter Salles, Jacques Deschamps, Luc Decaster, Philippe Gautier, Luc Riolon, Bertrand Schmitt, Michel Leclerc and Luc Perez, while encouraging young debutants like Wiktoria Szymanska, Nicoletta Fagiolo and José Ainouz.
Their recent production include Themerson & Themerson by Wiktoria Szymanska (2010, broadcastors Arte, TVP Kultura); A Woman in Politics by Luc Decaster (released in theatres in March 2010) and Shaman by Luc Perez (2008, Coproduction with Dansk Tegnefilm, Broadcastor Arte France)
Deann Borshay Liem: Co-Producer
Deann Borshay Liem has over twenty years experience working in development, production and distribution of independent films. She was Producer/Director/Writer for the Emmy Award-nominated documentary, First Person Plural, (Sundance, 2000; Grand Prize, Best Bay Area Documentary, San Francisco Int’l Film Festival), Executive Producer for Spencer Nakasako's Kelly Loves Tony (PBS, 1998) and and AKA Don Bonus (PBS, 1996, Emmy Award), Co-Producer for Special Circumstances (PBS, 2007), and Executive Producer for On Coal River (Silverdocs, 2010). She was the former Executive Director of the Center for Asian American Media where she supervised the development, distribution and broadcast of new films for public television and worked with Congress to support minority representation in public media. A Sundance Institute Fellow and the recipient of a Rockefeller Film/Video Fellowship, Deann is the Director/Producer/Writer of In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee which was broadcast nationally on PBS on the award-winning series Point of View (POV) in September 2010 and on Global Voices in June 2014, and Producer/Director (with Ramsay Liem) of the new film, Memory of Forgotten War, about the legacies of the Korean War which premiered in San Francisco in March, 2013 and is currently on the festival circuit
Premlatha Durham: Co-Producer
Premlatha Durham is a a committed supporter of ideas that make the world a better place and believes in inspiring people with a positive story. She is involved in various food and education related initiatives. In 2013, she started a farmers market in Louisville, Kentucky, bringing together the local farmers and the community for life’s simple sustenance “Food.” Her quest for organic food led her to explore sustainable agricutural practices, and founding Lakshmi Farms, where she grows her own food.
In 2014 she founded Barn School, a hands on learning environment for kids of all ages.
Premlatha is one of the earliest supporters of Burqa Boxers.
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