The Georgia Indo-American Chamber of Commerce named new board members last week as it announced the dates for one of its signature events: the Atlanta Indian Film Festival.
The chamber will host the third annual festival May 1-2, bringing in a new slate of Indian filmmakers to build on the momentum of the last two years.
Leading the chamber through 2020 will be a new board elected at a meeting in late January, along with a president who is to be tapped in the coming weeks, according to former President Anita Ninan, principal attorney at Ninan Legal LLC who has now been voted in as chair.
Other board members include (along with their executive positions at the GIACC):
- Jaymen Chavda, Attorney, Chugh, LLP
- Vaishali Joshi, Commercial Lender, Quantum National Bank
- Anil Kumar, President, TeleConsult Associates — *GIACC Secretary
- Sonjui Kumar, Attorney, Kumar, Prabhu, Patel & Banerjee, LLC
- Amber Mehta, Associate Partner, KNAV International Ltd. — *GIACC Treasurer
- Unmesh Mishra, Area Vice President, L&T Infotech
- “Pabs” Prabha Raghava,, Chief Executive Officer, Tours Limited
- SK Raj, Vice President – Business Development, Forar Tech, LLC — *GIACC Vice President
- Ash Thakker, President and CEO, Global Technology Connection, Inc.
Last year’s AIFF guests included directors like Vikas Khanna, a chef who had branched out from his customary food programs. “The Last Color,” based his novel, follows the relationship between a young tightrope walker and a widow forced to wear white to mark her exclusion from the colorful religious festival of Holi.
He was joined by south Indian film maker Vasanth Sai, whose Tamil-language story “Sivaranjani And Two Other Women” provided a fictional glimpse at how women across three generations and social classes dealt with gender-based discrimination. Other films screened at the festival included “Sindhustan” and “Ubuntu.”
The GIACC has long been aimed at positioning Georgia, known as the “Hollywood of the South” for its massive film sector, as a destination for filmmakers in Bollywood and beyond.
At last year’s event, Mr. Sai, who has directed 14 feature films and has filmed in such far-flung locations as South Africa and Thailand, said his first visit to Atlanta led him to envision future collaborations.
“I started falling in love with this place,” he told Global Atlanta of his visit at the time. “It’s not very busy, but at the same time it’s got a city look.”
He said he would like to see a “single-window” where production teams could go to get streamlined approvals of their projects. That’s the theory behind the Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Film and Entertainment and the Georgia Film Office.
Learn more about last year’s Indian film festival here and visit www.giacc.net for more information about this year’s event and other programs.
