LET’S TALK

Priya Giri Desai started her work in children’s media in 2003 at GBH Boston, working on the Emmy-nominated series Postcards From Buster. Priya was Development Producer in Children’s Media at GBH, where she helped to conceive and pitch media projects for children that span television, SVOD, audio and more. She developed WGBH’s kids podcast strategy and produced their first podcast, Molly of Denali. Priya also created and executed the MoD Scriptwriting Fellowship, which added Alaska Native writers to the team that eventually won the 2020 Peabody Award.

LET’S TALK is a conversation series featuring award-winning South Asian women and non-binary documentary filmmakers who get together for an intimate chat about their films. This is the behind the scenes dive into the minds of filmmakers who are committed ethical and artful documenting of lives.  If you want us to organize any specific conversations, or hear from specific, filmmakers please write to us at info@bitchitracollective.org

 

 

Episode 4

Samina Mishra & Priya Giri Desai

On our latest episode of Let’s Talk, Filmmaker/Author/Teacher Samina Mishra talks to Director/Producer Priya Giri Desai about representation, inclusivity and nuanced storytelling in kids’ content.

Catch their entire conversation here- 

 

Watch Samina’s film Stories of Girlhood and catch her reading one of her books, Shabana and the Baby Goat.
Priya spent most of her career in public television (PBS) making children’s shows, podcasts, games and more. Some of the projects she has worked on include Molly of Denali and Postcards from Buster – a documentary/animated hybrid series that explored different cultures and communities across the US and eventually the world. And here’s one she made in Chennai.

Bios of our guests-
Samina Mishra is a documentary filmmaker, writer, and teacher based in New Delhi, with a special interest in media for and about children. Her work uses the lens of childhood, identity and education to reflect the experiences of growing up in India. She is the founder of The Magic Key Centre for the Arts and Childhood that works with children and adults on using the arts in education.

Priya Giri Desai started her work in children’s media in 2003 at GBH Boston, working on the Emmy-nominated series Postcards From Buster. Priya was Development Producer in Children’s Media at GBH, where she helped to conceive and pitch media projects for children that span television, SVOD, audio and more. She developed WGBH’s kids podcast strategy and produced their first podcast, Molly of Denali. Priya also created and executed the MoD Scriptwriting Fellowship, which added Alaska Native writers to the team that eventually won the 2020 Peabody Award.

Connect with filmmakers here @pgirid and @findingenchantment

 


“The filmmaker’s gaze can be like a hammer that comes upon a story or it can be like a hummingbird, lightly touching upon your subjects.” – Priya Giri Desai

Filming Personal Stories

Shabnam Sukhdev & Bani Singh

Director/Producer of Taangh (Longing), Bani Singh and the Director of The Last Adieu, Shabnam Sukhdev discuss the process of making personal documentaries, relationship with their fathers and the traumatic past of India’s partition. 
A graduate of FTII, Pune, Shabnam Sukhdev was awarded a national award for the best biological reconstruction for her 90-minute film titled ‘The Last Adieu’ and  was nominated for the AMPIA awards in 2005 for ‘Stranger in my own skin’. 

 

Bani Singh studied space design at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She worked in the area of Museum studies at the Virasat-e-Khalsa museum in Anandpur Sahib, Punjab as a gallery visualizer and content interpreter. 

Connect with filmmakers here: @shabnamsukhdev and @taanghproject

 


“I was keen to engage the present with the past and how the conversation with our past can help guide us into the future.” – Bani Singh

Experimental Films

Sonali Gulati & Divya Sachar

Catch Sonali Gulati and Divya Sachar talk about their experience of grappling with the idea of home in their films 24 frames per day and Searcher. “Who has the power to represent whom? And who gets to tell whose stories?”

Sonali Gulati is an independent filmmaker, a feminist, a queer rights activist, and an educator. She teaches film at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts in the department of Photography & Film. Sonali grew up in New Delhi and has made several films that have screened at over five hundred film festivals worldwide. 

Divya Sachar is a New Delhi based filmmaker, writer & photographer. Her first film, “A Short Film About …” is a documentary on unhealthy body images, and her second film, “Searcher”, is an imaginative search into the origins of her schizophrenia. She also writes films & teaches ungrad students. 

Connect with filmmakers here: @sonalifilm and @culdivsac


“When films deviate from the expected ways of viewing them, they stand out. They give you a moment of pause.” – Sonali Gulati

Environmental Filmmaking

Mridu Chandra & Priya Thuvassery

Episode one of Let’s Talk features Mridu Chandra, Producer of “Becoming Cousteau” and Priya Thuvassery, Director of “Coral Woman.” 

Mridu has worked extensively as an archival producer on various films. When she was approached by Director, Liz Garbus, she couldn’t wait to dive into the trove of Jacques Cousteau’s videos and photographs of underwater exploration. For Priya, the story almost walked up to her. Uma Mani, the protagonist of Coral Woman called Priya’s office and approached her with an idea to make a documentary on corals in India. 

In this engaging conversation, learn more about Mridu and Priya’s latest projects that deal with climate change and the strong environmental voices in their films.

Connect with filmmakers here: @MriduChandra @PRIYATHUVASSERY


“It is never too late to change the course of your life” — Mridu Chandra