Poorna Jagannathan is a New York-based actor whose upcoming films include Aamir Khan's "Delhi Belly" and Bruce Beresford's "Peace, Love and Misunderstanding." She has also worked with acclaimed filmmakers like Spike Lee, Gore Verbinski and Joby Harold. On television, she has a recurring role on "Royal Pains" and has appeared on shows like "Law and Order" and "Rescue Me." She has been a proud supporter of NYIFF from its inception.

Myrna Moncayo-Iyengar currently works as Director of Corporate Strategy for Tribeca Enterprises, the parent company of the Tribeca Film Festival, Tribeca Film and Tribeca Flashpoint.

Prior to Tribeca, Myrna led the casting process for Ramin Bahrani's film Chop Shop, which premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards and one Gotham Award, including Breakthrough Actor. She also helped coordinate Oscar-campaign events for "Children of Men" and "Pan's Labyrinth" while at Alfonso Cuarón's Esperanto Filmoj, and managed film acquisitions for Emerging Pictures.

Prior to being bitten by the film bug in 2005, she worked in various management positions for 10 years in various firms including Citibank, Deloitte & Touche and KPMG.

Muriel (Mike) Peters film and television productions and credits include: LISTENING TO VOLCANOES, a DOCUMENTARIES shot in Indonesia for PBS and BBC, with Madhur Jaffrey as presenter; INNER SPACE TO OUTER SPACE, a trilogy of films on Indonesia; ASIA STAGE CENTER, a television series bringing together Asian and Western performing artists; THE REVENGE OF TWO SONS, a video on the Court Dance of Okinawa; MANIFESTATIONS OF SHIVA, a DOCUMENTARIES feature for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Asia Society and PBS; WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU GROW OLD? With DCA Productions; THE EYE OF THE STORM, a DOCUMENTARIES for ABC News, winner of a Peabody and many other awards; THE DAY BEFORE TOMORROW, for Newsweek Magazine; THE GURU, a Merchant Ivory feature shot in India for 20th Century Fox, starring Michael York and Utpal Dutt; and AFRICA, a four-hour DOCUMENTARIES for ABC. She is currently one of the producers of the DOCUMENTARIES film, A WAY HOME, about the U.S.-Manipur baseball project; and is developing THE DIPLOMAT’S WIFE, a feature set in India in 1963.

Ms. Peters was Director of the Film and Broadcasting Department of the Asia Society in New York from 1977-82, during which time she was Director of FILM INDIA (a major retrospective of films from India, jointly with MOMA), of FILMS FROM KOREA and of CINEMA INDONESIA. She was also Executive in charge of Film and Broadcasting for the Indo-US Subcommission on Education and Culture from 1976-83.

She is a longtime member of New York Women in Film, served as a Board Director and continues to serve on the Advisory Board. She was for some years the Chairman of the Board of Women in Film and Television International. She is a member of IFP.

Ms. Peters received a B.A. in philosophy from Harvard University, and a B. Litt in Oriental Art from Oxford University. Her dissertation was on the Elephanta caves of India, where she also lived for many years. She continues to maintain close ties with India. She has traveled widely in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, North America.

Sabrina Dhawan was born in England, raised in Delhi and lives in New York. She graduated from Columbia University’s film program in 2001 with a Masters of Fine Arts in Film. Sabrina’s student short Saanjh – As Night Falls was cited as ‘Best of the Festival’ at the Palm Springs Film Festival in 2000; won an award from New Line Cinema for ‘Most Original Film’, the ‘Audience Impact’ Award at Angelus Awards and was nominated for a Student Academy Award.

Sabrina’s first produced screenplay Monsoon Wedding, directed by Oscar-nominated director Mira Nair was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 2002 and was also nominated for a Golden Globe for ‘Best Film in a Foreign Language’.

Sabrina’s produced credits include 11.9.01, a short film on September 11th for Canal Plus; Cosmopolitan for PBS. She has co-screenplay credit on Kaminey (directed by Vishal Bharadwaj) and Ishiqiya (directed by Abhishek Chaubey). She served as co-producer on Bollywood Hero, a mini-series for IFC. Sabrina just completed writing a DOCUMENTARIES to celebrate 100 years of Bollywood which will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. She has written for various studios and film companies in the US and India, including 20th century Fox, HBO, Disney Animation, Fox-Star and Killer Films.

Sabrina has taught at Columbia University’s MFA program, MAISHA (a lab based in Uganda for East African film-makers), Asian American Writing Workshop, Doha Film Institute in Qatar, the Hamptons Film Festival, India Screenwriting Lab etc. She is an Assistant Professor and the Area Head of Screenwriting at the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University.

Sabrina is currently working on a Broadway musical adaptation of the movie Monsoon Wedding and on a feature film for ABC.

Critically-acclaimed filmmaker Kavery Kaul directs and produces DOCUMENTARIES that have been shown in theaters and on television, in the US and internationally. Her credits include Long Way from Home, One Hand Don’t Clap and First Look. Her work has been exhibited at festivals such as Telluride, London, Berlin, Sydney, in countries like Japan, India, Burkina Faso and Martinique. Her new DOCUMENTARIES Back Walking Forward will be released in 2011, and she is currently developing Streetcar to Kolkata.

Madhur Jaffrey is an award-winning actress and best-selling cookbook author regarded by many as the world authority on Indian food. Her classic first book An Invitation to Indian Cooking was published by Knopf in 1973, and she has been the host of the series Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery for BBC television. She has appeared in more than 20 films, including Merchant Ivory's Heat and Dust, and written more than 15 books. She won James Beard Awards in 1982, 1994, 2000, 2002, and 2004. Madhur lives in New York City.

Jerry Carlson , A specialist in narrative theory, global independent film, and the cinemas of the Americas, Professor Carlson is Acting Chair of the Department of Media & Communication Arts at The City College CUNY. In addition, at the CUNY Graduate Center he is a member of the doctoral faculties of French, Film Studies and Comparative Literature and a Senior Fellow at the Bildner Center for Western Hemispheric Studies. He has lectured at Stanford, Columbia, Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV (Cuba), the University of Paris, and the University of Sao Paulo, among others. His current research is focused on how slavery and its legacy in the New World have been represented in film, literature, and music.

Moreover, he is an active producer, director, and writer with multiple Emmy Awards. As a Senior Producer for City University Television (CUNY-TV), he created and produces the series CITY CINEMATHEQUE about film history, CANAPE about French-American cultural relations, and NUEVA YORK (in Spanish) about the Latino cultures of New York City. As an independent producer, his recent work includes the Showtime Networks production DIRT directed by Nancy Savoca and LOOKING FOR PALLADIN directed by Andrzej Krakowski.

In 1998 he was inducted by France as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes. He was educated at Williams College (B.A.) and the University of Chicago (A.M. & Ph.D.).

Claus Mueller pursued undergraduate and graduate studies in Germany, France, and the United States and teaches media research at CUNY. He has authored books and articles, focusing most recently integration and film tourism issues, as well as producing DOCUMENTARIES and presented related papers in New Delhi, Busan and other venues. As a recipient of numerous awards, including Fulbrights, he has arranged seminars and Congressional briefings and carried out research overseas with the next project scheduled for Cambodia. Apart from curating at specialized film festivals he has served as a judge for film festivals and for the national and international Emmys. He is the New York Correspondent for the Paris based M21Editions, but also writes for other electronic and print publications. He has been serving on the board of non profit media organizations such as the International Film Exchange and the New York Film and Video Council and has been elected to the American Council on Germany and the International Council of the National Television Academy. He is listed in Marquis’ Who’s Who in America.

Parag Amladi is a film scholar and educator and has taught film studies and film production first in Bombay at the Xavier Institute of Communication and subsequently at campuses of the City University of New York. He is a graduate of the Cinema Studies Dept at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. He has published scholarly and journalistic articles on the new Indian cinema as well as on the popular cinema. He has also worked in film and TV production and is currently developing a feature film project.

Zenobia Shroff has been an actress in NYC for the past 20 years. She has been in numerous theatrical productions. Some of you may know her from Sooni Taraporeval as Little Zizou which premiered at the 2008 NYIFF Film Festival. She has written a one woman piece Exotic Observations which she performed for the IAAC at the Guild Gallery past August. She writes for theajnabee.com and on her own website zenobiashroff.biz.

Nilita Vachani is an internationally recognized DOCUMENTARIES filmmaker with the films Eyes of Stone, Diamonds in a Vegetable Market and When Mother Comes Home for Christmas to her credit. Her first novel HomeSpun won Foreword's Choice Fiction award in 2008. She is also an editor, screenwriter and part-time faculty at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.