Anuradha Rana

Anuradha Rana is an independent filmmaker, program leader, and educator who has produced and directed award-winning films internationally. Born and raised in India, her immigrant roots create the lens of a curious interloper at the heart of her films, where everyday characters push conventional boundaries. Her work has been supported by Kartemquin Films, Tribeca Film Network, If/Then, PBS, DOC NYC, IL Arts Council, Chicago’s DCASE, CAAM, American Institute for Indian Studies, Chicago International Film Festival, Full Spectrum Features, and Depaul Humanities Center. Anuradha is a Vincent de Paul Professor, Director of the School of Cinematic Arts at DePaul University, and on the steering committee for the Asian American Doc Network (A-DOC). She has been named one of Chicago’s 50 Screen Gems, a DCASE esteemed artist,  DOC NYC’s Documentary New Leader, part of the ArtEquity BIPOC Leadership circle, and most recently, a Rockwood Documentary Leadership Fellow.

 

Musa Syeed

Musa Syeed’s feature films as writer/director, Valley of the Saints (Sundance Audience Award Winner) and A Stray (SXSW Official Selection), were both New York Times Critics’ Picks. He was also a co‑writer on the Sundance and Berlinale selection Menashe, which was distributed by A24. His short films include the NYT Op-Doc The Dispossessed and the PBS broadcast documentaries A Son’s Sacrifice and Bronx Princess.  Musa was the artistic director and lead instructor for Muslim Youth Voices, a public media program co-created with the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM). As an educator, Musa has taught for a variety of institutions, including Tribeca, Rutgers, Harvard, and the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective.

Shuling Yong

Shuling Yong is a Singapore-born, Chicago-based award winning documentary filmmaker, DP and Location Sound Mixer with over 15 years of experience. She has worked on films like It’s Only Life After All (Sundance, 2023, dir. Alexandria Bombach), Becoming (Netflix, 2020, dir. Nadia Hallgren), The Feeling of Being Watched (Tribeca, 2018, dir. Assia Boundaoui) and And She Could Be Next (Tribeca, 2020, dir. Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia). Her feature-length directorial debut, Unteachable, a documentary following a young woman on a mission to bring empathy and the joy of learning back into classrooms where students are struggling in the mainstream system, was the first local film to win the Audience Choice Award at the 30th Singapore International Film Festival in 2019. Shuling’s debut short film, Growing Roots, premiered on the Discovery Channel in 2015. Shuling has been a Kartemquin Films Diverse Voices in Docs Mentor, a participant in the Doc Society Queer Impact Producers Lab, a NewportFILM Cinematography Lab Fellow, an honoree for DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40” List 2019, and was selected for the Newcity Film 50 Chicago Screen Gems List 2020.