OUR INITIATIVES
Four ways in.
Programs and projects building access, knowledge, visibility, and community.
01
Fireside Conversations
CADENCE
Every other month
FORMAT
75 minutes, live
COST
Free
Straight talk from people doing the work. Then the floor is yours.
A recurring public session with filmmakers, programmers, producers and industry professionals, built around the questions emerging filmmakers actually need answered. Each one runs as an in-depth conversation followed by moderated Q&A and an open forum, so the room can ask what a panel never has time for.
Free, online, and open to anyone — recordings are published afterwards so the knowledge doesn't stay with whoever could make it on the day.
Where funding, craft, and career actually
get worked through — off the record.
An optional working session that follows each Fireside Conversation. Attendees break into small groups to take what came up and apply it to their own projects, or simply to talk openly about what they're stuck on.
Deliberately unrecorded, so people can speak candidly about money, rejection, and the things nobody says on a panel. Guest speakers are welcome to stay and weigh in, but it's never required of them.
Community Labs
02
WHEN
After each Fireside
FORMAT
45 minutes, small groups
RECORDED
No
03
The Lens List
CADENCE
Annual
NOMINATED BY
Programmers & Directors
FIRST EDITION
May 2028
The films festival insiders keep championing, and distribution keeps missing.
An annual list of South Asian and diaspora films that have been finished but haven't yet found distribution. Rather than a small jury deciding what deserves attention, the list is built from nominations submitted by working festival programmers and directors across the wider festival ecosystem.
The point is simple: get deserving, undistributed films in front of the people positioned to help them find a home.
South Asian diaspora cinema has a history. This is where it lives.
A publicly accessible record of films made across the South Asian diaspora — the work that shaped what came after, much of it scattered, out of circulation, or remembered only by the people who were there.
Built to be useful: searchable by filmmaker, region and era, and open to anyone researching, teaching, programming, or simply looking for what came before them.
South Asian Diaspora Film Archive
04
STATUS
In Development
ACCESS
Public
LEAD
Chithra Jeyaram