Outreach Committee Chair

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Tech Committee Chair

Ananyaa reached out to IndieMeme about volunteering in 2018 - 6 months after moving to the city of Austin, and mostly by accident. Since then, she's been amazed by the community at IM, and happily taking advantage of all the perks. Growing up in a family of cinema buffs, she loves being an armchair critic of all types of films. Her favourite films are ones with character driven plots, smart dialogue and an eye for the absurd. Her on-repeat films are Andaaz Apna Apna and Booksmart.

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When not catching people unawares after screenings, and pestering them for reviews, she loves to annoy her cat at home and make masala chai.

Outreach Committee

Geetika Tiwari is a Doctoral Candidate, Dissertator status (on sabbatical) from the Dept. of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During her tenure in Madison, she was the Program Developer and Evaluator of a Federally funded Family Strengthening Program whose target audience comprised of pre-adolescent children and their families from the Hmong community.
 
Prior to that assignment she was a Lecturer, teaching Undergraduate level Child Development coursework at the University of Delhi in India (where she also got her Undergraduate and Masters degrees in Human Development).

Festival Director

Pallavi joined Indie Meme in 2017 with 8+ years of diverse experience. She found her way to Indie Meme in 2017 as a volunteer.  At present, she serves as a Vice President & Executive  Board member of South Asian Austin Moms (SAAM), and loves to volunteer with other non-profits in Austin & Maryland area. Constantly exploring & prototyping new ideas, she will jump at the chance to be involved in any aspect of a project.

She has a healthy obsession of “helping people”, always trying to connect the dots to find the salient feature. Her hobbies include taking pictures (like truckloads of them), watching movies, dancing with her daughter. She loves to cook & bake. Oh yes, she also works full-time at a nursing home in Austin.

Asst. Festival Director

Rubi S. Lozoya is a PhD candidate from the University of Texas at Austin. Originally from Mexico, she has been in Austin (and with Indie Meme!) since 2013.

Her current research analyses the effects that streaming platforms, like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, have on the creation and distribution of independent Hindi films made by women and about women.

Marketing Committee Chair

Supriya Kini is a Storyteller, a Multiprenuer, and a Coach who loves watching movies that make her laugh, cry, and experience all the things in between. As an avid film watcher, she enjoys how well-scripted narratives transport us to new unknown worlds we would otherwise be wary of venturing into and offer us telling glimpses into our personal and collective human condition. Her love for Films is driven by the fact that a compelling story can be a powerful tool to facilitate inner and outer transformation.

An explorer at heart, Supriya moved to Austin in 2015 with her husband and two daughters. In her free time, apart from watching movies, you’ll find her reading, having a philosophical conversation with a friend, cooking with her kids, singing, or hiking in the woods.

​Programming Committee Chair

Sweta's interest in cinema landed her as a volunteer with Indie Meme in 2016. Initially she volunteered only in Dallas screenings, and later at the festivals in Austin. She joined the programming team in 2017. She performed other duties like, logistics, guest relations, filmmaker liaison, memberships and vote counting as well. Sweta was also the programming associate at MISAFF 2019 in Canada.

Other than her interest in films, she is also a Zumba instructor and has been helping people lead a healthier lifestyle. She is extremely excited to take up the role of Programming Director for IMFF20 and hopes to embark on a new journey with this experience.

Vandana has extensive experience working with companies on their online presence and site monetization initiatives. She is passionate about making technology easy to use. She currently is a Consultant at Dell Financial Services. She actively volunteers for many Austin area non-profit organizations, helping with strategic direction and production of their websites.
 

With 17 years of experience in the non-profit land conservation sector and having been the Director of Development at The Trust for public land, she is now an independent non-profit management & fundraising consultant. Anjali's enthusiasm and support have made us navigate many hurdles already. Indie Meme is so grateful for her advise and help as we grow, figure out the important issues of sustainability and venture into the non-profit arena.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/anjalikzutshi

He has taught film for over 25 years, is one of the founding board members of the Austin film Society and a current Programming Director. Chale has a passion for films and extensive knowledge of world Cinema. Indie Meme & AFS have collaborated many screenings so far and it has been all because of Chale’s support & enthusiasm for the emerging new voices from South Asia. He truely is Indie Meme's mentor!
http://cinemawithoutborders.com/conversations/3142-chale-nafus-austin-film-society.html

Vijay Mahajan holds the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at Mccombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin. He has received numerous lifetime achievement awards including the American Marketing Association (AMA) Charles Coolidge Parlin Award for visionary leadership in scientific marketing. The AMA also instituted the Vijay Mahajan Award in 2000 for career contributions to marketing strategy. In 2006, he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur) for his contributions to management research. He served as the dean of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, from 2002-2004. Professor Mahajan is author or editor of twelve books including his recent 2012 book, The Arab World Unbound. These books have been translated into twelve languages. His book, The 86% Solution, received the Book-of-the-Year Award (Berry-AMA) in 2007. 

Independent documentary filmmaker, activist, film festival curator (based in India) The one who made Indie Meme happen. It was through Surabhi’s personal work that the idea to promote Indie Films (not seen by most people in the US) came about. Her feature length documentaries have been screened and awarded at international and national festivals. The films have also been used by grass root campaigns and at universities in India and abroad. Surabhi has a fan following on every continent and yet in the US we have had limited  opportunities to see her films. It is this status quo that needs to change.  http://surabhisharma.wordpress.com/

Marina is the Executive Director of GAACC. 
Her career has been in a variety of enterprises, ranging from Benefits Consulting at Hewitt Associates to family owned plastics manufacturing. Prior to joining the Chamber, she was the Language Access and Outreach Coordinator for SAHELI, a domestic violence agency where she created trainings for and built relationships with the various Asian communities in Austin. Marina has also held the post of the Business Development Director at the Multiethnic Education & Economic Development Center in Dallas. This was a non-profit business assistance center to support underserved micro-enterprises by offering workshops, coaching retreats and technical assistance. During her tenure there, Marina was named 2009 Minority Business Champion.

Founder and CEO of Daman Consulting, Gita Lal leads Daman in being a leading provider of enterprise business intelligence and data management solutions. The company is a strategic partner for major U.S. corporations such as Southwest Airlines, Freescale Semiconductor, The Pillsbury Company, Boeing, and DaimlerChrysler. Gita also serves on the Austin Community College Foundation Board and has a deep passion for educating the new generation. Daman has been a proud supporter of the Indie Meme Film Festival in Austin since it's inception.

Contributing Editor and film critic for Screen Anarchy, Josh has been writing about Indian cinema for several years and has one of the driving forces in bringing independent and genre films from South Asia to film festivals around the world. He has worked with Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas as a programming consultant since 2013, and has independently consulted genre fests around the world looking for new films from India. As a journalist and critic he has covered Indian film festivals from London to Los Angeles since 2010. As a film critic, Josh is a member of the Online Film Critics society since 2013 and a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2017. He's also worked as a film festival representative for Indian genre films, helping ot place them at dozens of events around the world.