Jury 2025

Chaitanya Sareen is a creative and innovator with a passion for storytelling. He is an Executive Producer of several works including BAFTA-nominated and Oscar-shortlisted “Yellow,” “Meet the Patels,” and “Alien: American Dream Denied.” His photography has appeared in the New York Times and he has published an audiobook. He serves as a volunteer and advisor to the Tasveer organization.

Chaitanya is also a seasoned product leader with 20 years of technology experience and over 50 patents. He and his teams crafted the spatial interfaces and instinctual interactions of mixed reality headsets, the multitasking and productivity innovations of Microsoft Windows, and information worker breakthroughs in Microsoft Office. He has founded startups in the fields of distance learning and user-generated content. He is also an angel investor and advisor. Chaitanya is always in search of a good story.

Geeta Vasant Patel is an Emmy-nominated writer/director. In television, she most recently worked on LANTERNS for DC and HBO. Geeta directed and executive produced the pilot of Under the Bridge for Hulu and ABC Signature, starring Riley Keough and Lily Gladstone. She also directed an episode of Star Wars: Ahsoka for Disney+. She has directed multiple episodes of the HBO Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon and episodes of The Great for Hulu/MRC starring Elle Fanning & Nicholas Hoult.

Prior to that she directed episodes of The Magicians for Syfy, Runaways for Marvel TV, Dead to Me for Netflix, Sweetbitter and P-Valley for Starz, and Chambers for Netflix. Other episodic credits include: Atypical, Santa Clarita Diet, Champions, Superstore, Survivor’s Remorse, The Mick, The Mindy Project, Fresh Off the Boat, and Speechless.

Geeta made her directorial debut with the award-winning Sundance/ITVS documentary war thriller Project Kashmir, which led to directing fellowships at both the Sundance and Tribeca Institutes. Geeta and her brother, Ravi, wrote, directed, and edited the comedy Meet the Patels, which won numerous awards in the film festival circuit and was nominated for an Emmy in 2017 after premiering theatrically in 2015. She also served as cinematographer for the film, which was executive produced by Academy Award winner Geralyn Dreyfous. In 2018, Geeta and Ravi signed a development deal to write and direct a narrative version for Fox Searchlight.

Kayla Abuda Galang is a filmmaker based in Austin, Texas, drawing from the humor and details of her communities, surroundings, memory, and the television that raised her. Her short film When You Left Me On That Boulevard won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

She was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film,” received the Ani ng Dangal award from the National Commission for Culture and Arts of the Philippines, and joined the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as a voting member in the Short Films Branch. She is currently developing her first feature film and works as a video producer and editor at the University of Texas.

Omi Vaidya is an Indian-American actor and filmmaker who gained widespread recognition for his role as Chatur Ramalingam, also known as “The Silencer,” in the critically acclaimed Bollywood film 3 Idiots. An NYU Tisch Film graduate, he has edited feature films and written and directed short films for the past 20 years.

He has also appeared in American television shows such as The Office and Arrested Development, and in Bollywood films including Dil Toh Baccha Hai Ji, Desi Boyz, Jodi Breakers, Blackmail, and the Indian webseries Metropark. Omi has successfully bridged the gap between the Indian and American film industries and has gained a dedicated fan following. His charismatic and relatable persona, coupled with his comedic talent, has endeared him to audiences around the world. He is most proud of his Marathi movie Aaicha Gavat Marathi Bol, which released in theaters in Maharashtra and is now on Amazon.

Priya Vashist (she/they) is a filmmaker and an Assistant Professor of Film at Old Dominion University. Priya’s film work focuses on social justice and the representation of queer South Asian immigrants on screen.

Priya’s films and screenplays have won awards and have been featured at several national and international film festivals and conferences. Priya is one of the founding board members of the Virginia Queer Film Festival. She received an MFA in Cinema Production from San Francisco State University.

Samia Zaman is a film producer and director from Bangladesh, currently based in London and New York. Her latest production, the award-winning feature narrative Ajob Karkhana (Song of the Soul), has screened at festivals worldwide, including the Tasveer Film Festival 2022.

Samia is a founding trustee member of Dhaka Doc Lab, a South Asian documentary pitching forum. She has served as a jury member in many film festivals, including the Asian Competition Section of the Dhaka International Film Festival (January 2024) and Tasveer Film Festival (2025).

Vikram Gandhi is an award-winning director of non-fiction and fiction films and television. His first film, Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet, won the SXSW Audience Award and was released theatrically in 20 countries as well as on Netflix worldwide.

Vikram served as a Correspondent and Producer for the Emmy-winning series VICE on HBO. He’s also directed and produced Barry (Netflix), Trigger Warning (Netflix), Grass is Greener (Netflix), and 69: The Sage of Danny Hernandez (Hulu). His highly anticipated four-part series The Man Will Burn, about Burning Man, premieres on HBO in Spring 2026.