Aditya Seth

The President

Aditya Seth is an internationally acclaimed independent award winning Documentary, Short & Corporate Film Maker & Academic with a sound grounding in Theatre & Music and has been involved in the making of Short Films, Documentaries & TV programmes in all genres for national as well as international audiences. He is an Academic & Professor of Film & teaches Filmmaking & related media at the Under Graduate & Post Graduate level. He is a Certified Master Trainer for Media & Entertainment Skills Council, Skill India. Aditya is a founder member of Vikalp: Films For Freedom, he was the Treasurer of the Indian Documentary Producers Association (IDPA) from 2004 -’08 & is currently it’s Vice President. Having trained under the guidance of Internationally acclaimed Film maker Shri. Prakash Jha Aditya’s versatility of talent is clearly visible in the over 500 projects he has designed and shaped as Producer/ Writer/ Director / Editor/ Consultant/ Film Critic/ Voice Over artist. His portfolio is defined by Documentaries, Corporate Films, News Magazines, TV shows, Tele- Serials, Public Service  Announcements, Audio Visuals, Television Commercials, Live Events, CD Roms & Radio Production. He is an Academic Consultant for University of South Wales, Cardiff, Wales, (UK)

Rajni Acharya 

The Vice President

Rajni Acharya – Producer & Director

He is also a member of WIPA (Western India Producers Association).

Director and maker Rajni Acharya is now ready to release India’s first musical Lifeography film in Gujarati “Sur Shabdnu Sarnamu” on legendary Music Director Avinash Vyas, famous Gujarati music director and lyricist.

This research based film took 4 years to make, which has 30 celebrities from Gujarati music industry who reveal lots of unknown, untold information on Late Padma Shree Avinash Vyas. This Film has 30 super-hit composed by him. At the same time many film personalities like Asha Bhosle, Usha Mangeshkar, Praful Dave, Purshottam Upadhyay and many more specially sung during the talk of this film. Pujiya Morari Bapu and Pujiya Ramesh Oza blessed this project by specially appearing in this film. 1hrs 45mins duration has got musical journey of Avinash Vyas and unknown personal information.

He has also made a Lifeography movie on the singer of Indian silver screen Late Mohammed Rafi Title “Dastaan-E-Rafi”.

Docu – film on immortal talent of Mohammad Rafi-Saab, the golden-voice of Indian Play-back domain has been his 5 years passionate journey to conduct arguably the longest in-depth Research initiative Lifeography in Media-world. This Lifeography was very popular in the film festivals circuit in India and abroad, and has won numerous awards and appreciation. One more feather on the cap is, having more than 100 Privileged screening have been arranged in India and internationally and still it is in demand.

Fortunate to spend over 40 years in Creative fraternity, in multiple extraordinary and Pioneering responsibilities; as the Media industry transformed itself into glory of content expansion and Service diversification, affording career-progression of every professional in new-media domain and simultaneously enabling fulfilment of personal vision in terms of Story-telling strategy for purposeful impact over human minds!

Entertainment trade conferences have been happy hunting ground with extended from of participation with IDPA (trade-assn), RAPA (radio-body), ISKCON (Spiritualism) and involvement with ATN (1^st Sat-TV Channel), Sun-TV (1^st Tamil Service), CMM-Aastha (1^st Religious TV), CVO-Hinduja (1^st Cable TV) and ITV (1^st Internet Streaming) and NGO-live-cast (1^st from UN); all done as the Pioneer, for overcoming those global barriers with best Indian mindset.

Career through-put of over 1000 hours of Public-interest audio-visuals (covering Environment impact and Adolescent issues), 2000 hours of Digital Entertainment content for Satellite-TV channels, 500 hours of IPTV as ‘On-demand’ modules and 100 hours of Mobi-sodes Tailor crafted for Mobile – TV specialty; having successfully delivered to global markets; with appreciations from Licensed distribution affiliates, of USA & UAE for popularity has launched Takshila Multimedia Live on You-Tube.

Sanskar Desai

The General Secretary

Mumbai based filmmaker, started his career in 1984 more than three and a half decades ago.

Nominated – Preview Committee- International Film Festival of India; Goa (IFFI 2019), Jury Chairperson – Third Eye Asian Film Festival 2012 & 2020, Jury Chairperson- Indian Railways Film Competition, Jury – State Awards- Government of Maharashtra 2012, Jury & Jury Chairperson – Kolhapur International Film Festival multiple occasions, Jury-BMM Degree Colleges-University of Mumbai etc…

Organizing Committees MIFF‘04 & MIFF ‘14. Nominated – Child Labour Advisory Board; Govt of Maharashtra. Selection Committee – MIFF ’04, MIFF ’06, MIFF ’08 & MIFF ’14,

Documentaries for – Govt of Gujarat, Ministry Information & Broadcasting, Ministry of Labour, & other Central & State Government organizations etc… Corporate Films – Reliance group, NRB Bearings, Choksey Chemicals Pvt Ltd {Asian Paints}, Indian Red Cross Society etc… AD-Films – Ramson Kitchenware AURO VISION etc…

‘The Mahatma’ selected in many International Film Festivals. Written Screenplay for Manpasand- The Perfect Match film selected – 22 International Film Festivals, won many awards. Narrative-poem for an animation film “Chakravyuh” – RTI; film won many awards.

Faculty – Xavier’s Institute of Communication; (XIC); Mumbai, Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University-Wardha, Harkisan Mehta Foundation; Mumbai & Wigan & Leigh College (UK affiliated).

Film-Making – Film Appreciation Workshops at Guwahati, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad, Bhubaneshwar, Sambalpur, Jaipur, Nasik, Azamgadh, Valsad etc… Conducted Documentary workshop for M.S. University; Gujarat & National Film Archive India (NFAI) at Shimla;

Trained in Hindustani Classical Music 17 years from Pt. Dinkar Kaikini, Pt. Ajay Pohankar & Pt. Dayal Thakur.

Taught Acting-Stagecraft to nearly 2000 students. Plays & Street-Plays received many awards. Poems published in literary anthologies.

Dr. Ravindra Katyayan

The Treasurer

Dr. Ravindra Katyayan is Head, Department of  Hindi and Coordinator, Journalism and Mass Media at Maniben Nanavati Women’s College (affiliated to SNDT Women’s University) Mumbai. He worked in Indian Air Force as a RADAR Technician. Then he voluntarily took retirement and joined Goa University as a Lecturer. He taught in Goa University, Pune University and SNDT Women’s University Mumbai. Apart from being the Head of the Department of Hindi, he also coordinates Saral Hindi Course orgnised by Hindustani Prachar Sabha, Mumbai. He teaches Journalism at Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, Pune since 2004. He has written Tele-serials, short films and feature films. Recently, he made two documentaries and working on third one.

Anjolie Purat

EC Member 

Anjolie Purat – Film Maker

DOCUMENTARY / SHORT FILMS:

The Burning Story’ – Documentary on Skin Donation Films Division Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India. Roll: Direction, Camera and Editing

Laadli’ – A project on girl child Award as the best film. Roll: Direction, Camera and Editing

Friends of Trees’ – History & work of FOT. Roll: Research, Script, Camera and Editing

MOTION’ – Short Animation film. Roll: Direction, Camera and Editing

Aadarsh Gaon’ – Salaam Bombay Academy of Arts. Roll: Stills & Making of Documentary film

Ganapati Bappa Moraya’ (30 stories) For Ruturang Creation. Roll: Research, Script & Co-Direction for Serial

RESEARCH, RECORDINGs Avs of Events and Workshops for Dr. Ashok Ranade, Musicologist

Mrs. Vijaya Mehta, Internationally known Theatre person

 NCPA, Podar International, Taj Group & Many Corporate Bodies

NCPA Official Photographer – Four Theatres 6 years

 Photographic Documentation (B/W) of Live Programmes 365 Days

MMRDA Official Photographer & Videographer 3 years

 PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE – Ad Agencies as Visualiser, Team Leader 12 years.

Usha Deshpande

EC Member

After completing B.A. with English, Usha obtained a degree in Journalism and then went on to graduate from Film and Television Institute of India, Pune in a three-year course in Film Direction and Screenplay Writing.

Since then she has been making documentary films (in 35mm/16mm/HD) and television programmes in fiction and non-fiction.

Usha has also worked for E-TV, East-West Airlines and FTII (TV faculty)
She has delivered lectures in Film Appreciation courses of National Film Archives of India and continues to write film-based articles.

She was a Vice- President in the previous EC.

Satinder Mohan

EC Member

Additional Director General (Retd) from Ministry of Defence. Filmmaker and Film critic. Jury and  Preview Committee Member in many International Film Festivals of India. Has attended all IFFIs and Filmotsavs since 1983. Have attended all MIFFs since 2012 in Mumbai. Advisory Panel Member of CBFC New Delhi  for 3 terms . External Member of NFDC for the last 8 years. Preview Committee member of Doordarshan Films Committee, DD Arun Prabha and DD urdu Channels.Executive Committee member of IDPA . Member of IDPA team for Open Forums organised in IFFIs and MIFF. Preview committee member of Jagran Film Festivals. Preview committee Member of 24 th European  Union Film Festival held in India in various cities.

Prof.Suresh Sharma

EC Member

Documentary Filmmaker and Journalist.

Ex-Editor, Sandhya Times (TOI).

Ex-Dean and Head, Department of Film & Theatre , Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University, Wardha.

Documentary films:

• The king of Romance Shammi kapoor
• Music composer Ravi & The Golden Age of Hindi Cine-Music
• The Musical Journey of Khayyam
• The Last Mughal Bahadur Shah Zafar.

Achieved  NATIONAL AWARD BEST FILM CRITIC (2001)

Published books:

• Bimal Roy ka Devdas (shooting script)
• Raghuvir Sahay Rachnavali (Complete Works in 6 volumes)

Benipuri Granthavali (Complete Works in 8 volumes)

• Collected works of eminent journalist Prabhash Joshi

Bipin Choubal

EC Co-opted member 

Bachelor of Arts with Psychology and Economics from the UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY.

Diploma in Mass media from Chetna College, affiliated to the UNIVERSITY OF BOMBAY.

Worked with M/s. KISHOR KUMAR PRODUCTION, for the film “DOOR KA RAHI” in the Editing department as Assistant.

Worked with M/s. PRAMOD FILMS of Producer-Director PRAMOD CHARVARTY,  in PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT as Assistant.

Joined FILMS DIVISION, in PRODUCTION DEPARTMENT, as Unit Manager, in 1979.

Made Documentary films on yesteryear playback singer MUBARAK BEGUM, MAHENDRA KAPOOR as Director. MOHAMED RAFFI as ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR.  Few films on “GANDHI’s preaching.

Made Radio Serial on “WOMEN EMPOWERMENT” for “MAHILA ARTHIK VIKAS MANDAL”, Government of Maharashtra, 52 Episode broadcast on ALL INDIA RADIO, MUMBAI, all over the MAHARASHTRA in 2006 – 07.

On my retirement from FILMS DIVISION,  made a film on “AMBIDIXTURE – AMAZING TALENT” as a Director – Producer, nominated for the NATIONAL SCIENCE FILM FESTIVAL in March 2020, under the banner of ‘FIRST IMPRESSION PRODUCTION”, Mumbai.

Film on XENOTRANSPLATATION – Animal organ transplant to the human body, under production, shooting in MARCH 2021.

Under production TV Serial on “WOMEN CRICKET” and INDIAN JEWELLERY (Dream project) maybe for OTT platform.