international category of films that develop the theme of Human Unity
The submissions for the films on Human Unity came from all over the world: India, Iran, Sierra Leone, Croatia, France, Romania, Finland, Greece and many other countries covering a wide range of topics.
Lesley Branagan
Lesley is an independent documentary filmmaker, a social researcher and writer. Her work focuses on arts, culture, health and India. She has a PhD in social anthropology.
Kati Hoetger
Kati moved on from her career in filmmaking to commit to civil peace service and conflict resolution. She is a member of ‘Restorative Auroville’, a team offering Restorative Circles and advocating for a justice system for Auroville, where connection is more important than punishment
Elaine Catherine
Elaine has been a visitor to Auroville since 2000 and became a member of the Township in 2008. Over the years she has been working for a number of Auroville Services and this year is proud to be part of the group to review and rate the films for the category on Human Unity.
Auroville categories
The three judges for the Auroville categories (Films About Auroville, Films by Aurovilians and Films by Students) are: Aanchal Kapur, Anushka Meenakshi and Sumana Kittur.
Aanchal Kapur’s interest in documentary films led her to start the Kriti Film Club, which has been consistently showing socially relevant and thought provoking cinema for over a decade. Kriti Film Club has been a staunch collaborator of the Auroville Film Festival since 2012. Aanchal has been a judge for us in 2013 and, since then, has helped our subsequent film festivals. We can honestly say that she is responsible for the good selection of Indian documentaries that we have been able to screen every edition.
Anushka Meenakshi is a filmmaker, a community video trainer and designs and performs music for theatre productions. A neighbour of Auroville, she enjoys spending some of her time volunteering doing forest work. Her last film, Up Down & Sideways, is being screened in our film festival after a successful international tour.
Suman Kittur is an Indian journalist, film director and lyricist working in Kannada cinema. She rose to fame becoming an independent director with Slum Bala (2008). Her subsequent films such as Kallara Santhe(2009), Edegarike (2012) and Kiragoorina Gayyaligalu (2016) have earned critical acclaim, awards and commercial success. Most of her films deal with the anti-social elements dominating in the present era. Suman Facebook profile
