5-10 November 2024, Goa, India
OUR
MENTORS
MENTORS.
Jannat Gargi
Executive Producer
Jannat Gargi is an Emmy and Peabody winning producer and executive producer of the Academy Award winning documentary, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). As a veteran film executive and creative producer, Gargi has executive produced and produced numerous award winning documentary films and series across genre and platform.
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As SVP of Documentaries for Westbrook Studios (founded by Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith), Gargi established the documentary division with a premium slate of films including Copa71, with executive producers Serena and Venus Williams and is currently in post-production on Full Circle: The First All Black Everest Ascent and The Debutantes. Prior to joining Westbrook, Gargi served as VP of Documentaries for VICE Studios overseeing development for a slate of premium documentaries and series including three-time Academy Award nominated documentary FLEE (2022) and The American Gladiators for ESPN’s 30 For 30 series (2023).
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Prior to VICE Studios, Gargi served as Head of Documentary Films for Vulcan Productions where she developed and produced a wide range of acclaimed, cause based documentary films including Academy Award Nominated short documentary, Lead Me Home (2022), LIFT (2023) Master of Light, Best Documentary winner SXSW (2022), Academy Award nominated short documentary, Hunger Ward (2021), Sundance Audience Award winner The Reason I Jump (2019), and Academy Award nominated and Emmy Award winning Body Team 12 (2016). In her work as an independent producer, Gargi produced the true crime limited series, Murder Among the Mormons, directed by Jared Hess and Tyler Measom on Netflix (2021), co-executive produced the Academy Award nominated short documentary Knife Skills (2018) and produced the Emmy nominated documentary CIRCO (2010).
Gargi is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS), Producers Guild of America (PGA), serves on the Board of Directors for Washington FilmWorks and is Co-Chair of The Redford Center Board of Directors, a non-profit that harnesses the power of media to engage people and galvanize environmental action.
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Gautam Pandey
Director, Cinematographer
Gautam studied film in Canada and has been part of several national and international award winning productions. But since then misplaced his film degree certificate several times and put away the awards that were just collecting dust, to focus on telling stories that can create real impact.
Born into a family of nature-enthusiasts his passion for filmmaking started at an early age and he is now focused on using film as a medium to bring about awareness about wildlife and combine the genres of Natural History and Conservation films.
Gautam has been experimenting with technology to push the boundaries and find new ways to tell stories and deliver conservation messages to new audiences. For the past few years he been experimenting with cinematic 360 VR to create immersive experiences to tell stories and deliver conservation messages to new audiences.
His recent films are on air on Animal Planet and Discovery, Gyamo - Queen of the Mountains and Looking for Sultan. He has also produced and directed an ongoing rescue series for National Geographic India, Snakes SOS - Goa’s Wildest. Season 5 is currently on air.
Noel Kok
Producer, NEWF
Noel Kok is a storyteller and a National Geographic Explorer, with an interest in natural history and stories of African conservation. After dropping out of law school, Kok began a 25-year career in management, marketing, music, and media production. He has produced, directed and distributed a number of music albums, live shows, documentary shorts, and a conservation television series. Kok’s real passion is creating opportunities and unlocking barriers to entry for African storytellers. He is a co-founder and executive director of Nature, Environment & Wildlife Filmmakers (NEWF), a community-centric organization that aims to remove barriers, and build capacity for African nature, environment and wildlife visual storytellers. Through its mission, NEWF enables access, supports inclusion, and fosters a culture of equity
Vicky Mathews
Writer, Director
Vicky Matthews is an Emmy nominated television producer with over twenty-five years in US and international long-form broadcast documentary. On staff at the National Geographic Society, she oversaw the development, production, and post-production of several key global series, broadcast in 25 different languages across 143 countries, reaching over 160 million homes. In the course of her career, she has produced programming in multiple genres including Natural History, Current Affairs; Investigation, Process; Engineering, Space Exploration and Archaeology, and has produced documentary films for PBS, Discovery, Animal Planet, History Channel, and ZDF.
Vicky is a strong and passionate storyteller, with a curiosity about people and places that has made her a powerhouse in the field in some of the most challenging places in the world. She has extensive interview experience with experts, scholars, scientists and advocates on a wide range of issues. As a director, she has the ability to turn the ordinary into engaging and interesting visuals, and prefers an active, ‘in-the-moment’ style that can make even the most camera-shy participant shine on television.
Born in the United States, raised and educated in the UK, Vicky has work experience on six continents. She is driven and motivated by an innate cultural sensitivity born from working and
living abroad.
Geeta Gandbhir
Director
Director Geeta Gandbhir is an award winning filmmaker. She embarked on her career in narrative film under the guidance of Spike Lee and Sam Pollard. After working for eleven years in scripted film, collaborating with renowned figures such as the Coen Brothers, Robert Altman, and others, she transitioned into documentary filmmaking. As a Director, credits include the Oscar Shorlisted film “How We Get Free” for HBO, the series "Born in Synanon" for Paramount, "Eyes on the Prize" for HBO, "Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power," which was nominated for the 2022 Critics Choice Award, won a 2023 SIMA Award, and won a 2023 Emmy Award. She directed and show ran the series "Black and Missing" for HBO which won a 2022 NAACP Award for Best Directing, a 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Series, a 2022 ATAS Honors Award, and a Cinema Eye Honors for Best Series. She directed the film "Apart," with Rudy Valdez, for HBOMax, which was nominated for an NAACP Award and won a 2022 Emmy Award. Her short film from 2020, "Call Center Blues," with Topic Studios was shortlisted for the 2021 Academy Awards. She directed an episode "The Asian Americans" for PBS, which won the 2021 Peabody Award. Additional directing credits include the six-part series "Why We Hate" for Discovery, and "I Am Evidence" for HBO which won a 2019 Emmy, DuPont Award, and ATAS Award. Her film "Armed with Faith" for PBS also won a 2019 News and Documentary Emmy, an episode of the Netflix series "The Rapture," focusing on rap artist Rapsody, "Prison Dogs," which she co-directed with Perri Peltz, and "A Journey of a Thousand Miles: Peacekeepers," for PBS. She also played a co-director and co-producer role in the "A Conversation on Race" series in collaboration with The New York Times Op-Docs. This series earned recognition, including an Online Journalism Award for Online Commentary, an AFI Documentary Film Festival Audience Award for Best Short, and a MacArthur Grant. She also co-produced the HBO film "The Sentence," directed by Rudy Valdez, which received a 2019 Primetime Emmy. In her role as an Editor, her films have garnered two Emmy Awards, four Peabody Awards, and one Academy Award.
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As editor, her films have won 2 Emmys, 3 Peabodys and an Academy Award.
Brian Tilley
Director
Brian Tilley has directed a number of documentary series’ for Al Jazeera Englishincluding five seasons of the award-winning six part ‘MY’ series, shot in Nigeria, Cuba, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe.
He is currently Series Producer of the AFRICA DIRECT series of short African films from across the continent for Al Jazeera.
Brian produced the short documentary films for the Steps’ WHY DEMOCRACYglobal documentary series and subsequently produced both the 8 long and 40short films for the global WHY POVERTY series.
His documentary on AIDS activist, Zackie Achmat, IT’S MY LIFE, was screened in competition at IDFA and on several international television channels including BBC, ARTE, YLE, CBC, YLE, SVT, DR and SUNDANCE CHANNEL.
He wrote and directed the drama series IN A TIME OF VIOLENCE co-produced with Channel Four, YLE and ARTE, which sold to 32 countries.
He been Story Consultant or Script Editor on acclaimed documentaries including Rehad Desai’s Emmy award-winning MINERS SHOT DOWN, Hajooj Kuka’s BEATS OF THE ANTONOV, which won the TIFF Audience Award and Anjali Nayar and Hawa Essuman’s SILAS, which premiered at TIFF and sold to Amazon.
In addition he has script edited fiction films such as Oliver Schmitz’s HIJACK STORIES Wanuri Kahiu’s Kenyan Cannes hit, RAFIKI and Mickey Fonseca’s Mozambique feature film RESGATE. He co-wrote Akin Omotoso’s 2019 Nigerian feature film THE GHOST IN THE HOUSE OF TRUTH. Brian is currently part of the writing team on a new Kenyan Netflix series SPIN.
Ollie Huddleston
Documentary Film Editor
Ollie Huddleston is an award-winning film editor with over 30 years of experience working on cinema and TV documentaries. He has won two Royal Television Society editing awards and twice been nominated for a BAFTA.
He has worked with many of documentary’s leading lights including ten films with Kim Longinotto but also with Adam Curtis, Sean McAllister and Aliona Van der Horst winning multiple BAFTA, BIFA and Grierson awards in the UK and prizes at festivals all over the world, including two for‘’Sisters in Law’’at Cannes. He has had six films selected for Sundance including‘’Rough Aunties’’ which won the World Cinema Documentary prize and ‘’The Liberace of Baghdad’’ which won the Special Jury award. ‘’Hold me tight, Let me go’’ won the Special jury award at IDFA.
Ollie has worked as edit consultant on many award-winning feature documentaries, sat on festival juries and taken part in edit workshops and masterclasses around the world. His most recent films include ‘Dalton’s Dream’’ and ‘’In the Court of the Crimson King.’’
Survila Mindaugas
Director
Mindaugas Survila is a Lithuanian cinematographer and director who has cooperated with numerous distinguished directors (Sergey Loznitra, Sharūnas Bartas, Audrius Stonys).
Trained as a biologist at Vilnius University, Mindaugas is successfully pursuing his career in documentary filmmaking (film directing and cinematography). Both social and environmental topics prevail in Mindaugas's work. In 2017, he created a documentary poem titled "The Ancient Woods'', which was screened at more than 70 festivals in over 30 countries worldwide. Mindaugas also collaborates with fiction movie creators and various production companies (Netflix, Swedish TV, etc) by filming exceptional nature or underwater shots.
In his own work, he focuses exclusively on poetic films about nature. His very first docu-poem, Meeting the Ospreys, earned him an award for the Best Lithuanian nature film.
His second film, The Field of Magic, toured many prestigious documentary festivals worldwide. The Ancient Woods earned him several awards, including a Lithuanian Film Award.