Event Details:
Date: Tuesday, March 9th
Time: 6pm PT / 9pm ET
Duration: 1 hr
Location on the Festival Map: ‘The Hall’
Speaker: Gayatri Bajpai & Nirav Bhakta
In partnership with South Asians in Entertainment (SAIE)
This Session
A guide you through the steps of bringing a short film to life: concept, script, budgeting and scheduling, to shooting, through editing and distribution. Practical answers to questions that every first time filmmaker has.
Speakers Bios
About Gayatri Everitt Bajpai:
Gayatri Everitt Bajpai is a filmmaker based in Vancouver. She earned her MFA in Film Production at UCLA, where she received the Lynn Weston and Rabbit Bandini Thesis Awards for her final project, a segment of an anthology feature produced by Rabbit Bandini Productions. She won Directors’ Spotlight Awards for two of her other short films, Housewarming and Muck, and produced a documentary about Francis Ford Coppola's live cinema project Distant Vision. Gayatri and her co-director Nirav Bhakta have since won HBO’s 2019 APA Visionaries with their short film Halwa, which has gone on to garner awards at festivals around the world. Gayatri is developing her first feature.
About Nirav Bhakta:
Nirav Bhakta is an award-winning Director/Actor/Writer. While growing up as an undocumented immigrant in motels, Nirav utilized the restraints of his environment and geographical boundaries to create with what he had. Nirav's background in story telling extends from architecture to the North Indian classical dance form of Kathak. Due to the lack of authentic roles and experiences as an actor, Nirav began creating zero budget short films focusing on the immigrant experience. In 2019, Nirav and his codirector Gayatri Bajpai were announced as the winners of the HBO Visionaries Short Film Competition for their film 'Halwa', which is now streaming on HBO. His next project 'Thank You, Come Again' created at the Armed With A Camera fellowship with Visual Communications and co-sponsored by The Academy, went on to become a case study for race and ethnic politics within academic circles such as Rutgers, Brandeis and UCLA . Nirav is currently working on the animated short film 'The Last Of The Stars' at CBS in collaboration with the non-profit
About South Asians In Entertainment (SAIE)
SAIE (and it’s womxn-forward community, South Asian Women In Entertainment SAWIE) are dedicated to using the voices of South Asian’s in entertainment and their experiences, knowledge and power to uplift each other and the next generation of talent in the entertainment industry through education, partnership, and mentorship.
About The South Asian Film Fest of America
Showcasing diversity, creativity and a multi hyphenated identity, the South Asian Film Festival of America (#southasianfilmfest) is an international screening and awards platform for South Asians to showcase their films and digital work. We're a culture-impact film festival for the new generation of South Asian creatives to share their experiences and narratives through feature films, short films, web-series, and music videos with global audiences. We welcome stories from and inclusive of individuals with South Asian heritage, the diaspora, immigrants, and from the sub-continent itself.
**This event is included in the following tickets:
South Asian Film Fest [All Masterclasses]
South Asian Film Fest [ALL Screenings + Q&As + Masterclasses]
