Aashi Morales

Aashi Morales has spent most of her career as an attorney in public service. Helping the community comes naturally to her. She discovered Indie Meme in 2018, and after that immediately volunteered to be part of that year’s film festival. She is thrilled to now be working with the dynamic and creative members of the Indie Meme board and is looking forward to helping spread the news about Indie Meme’s thoughtful and intriguing programming to the greater Austin community.

Christine Chung

Festival Coordinator, Christine Chung works in a variety of creative spaces including non-profit theatre & performing arts, film festivals, documentary short films, and experiential immersive design. Her recent affiliations include SXSW, IF/Then & Field of Vision, SFFILM, SFBATCO, and African Voices. She recently received a Theatre Bay Area Award for Outstanding Choreography for SFBATCO's flagship show "I, Too, Sing America". She is so excited to be a part of the Indie Meme team and bring the amazing world of South Asian cinema to wider audiences! Her current film recommendations are Minari and Nine Days!

Kailee Andrews

Kailee Andrews is a film & plant lover who joined Indie Meme in 2021 as a Technical Manager and Video Editor. She began programming films at the University of Wisconsin through the WUD FILM Program, an innovative org for young event planners. Her team’s work hosting indie and international screenings led to her being honored as a Telluride Student Symposium fellow. She’s worked festivals across the states, including Wisconsin, Bushwick, & Reel Sisters, and is thrilled by the program and community around Indie Meme! Her streaming recs are Swiss Army Man & The World of Us.

Ramdas Menon

A long-time resident of Austin, Ramdas got hooked onto films at a very young age, for reasons that he has only shared with his therapist. He joined Indie Meme (IM) in 2015 as a volunteer, and has been associated with all the IM film festivals. As an IM volunteer, he has performed several duties: chauffeur, delivery guy, ticket collector/clicker, vote counter, theater manager and also served on the 2018 programming team. In 2019, he served as the interim Chief Executive Officer at IM.

Supriya Kini

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.

Ananyaa Ravi

Product Manager by day, Ananyaa reached out to IndieMeme about volunteering in 2018 - soon after moving to Austin. Since then, she's been amazed by the community & art at IM. She always looking for films with an eye for the absurd. Her feel good films are Andaaz Apna Apna and Booksmart.

She's excited to be with Indie Meme on the new leg of this festival's journey.

Geetika Tiwari

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.

She has also been a lecturer at University of Delhi, teaching Child Development.

Meghana Dhall

Meghana is a Plano, TX resident & an avid movie lover! Her childhood is filled with fond memories of watching commercial and parallel cinema, acting in plays, local TV serials, and theater. Meghana was an English news reader for four years with Sun News Channel in Chennai. Meghana’s associations with Indie Meme first started as a supporter – she watched every single IM film screened in Dallas if she was in town. She then became a volunteer and finally a Board Member in 2020.

Shuja Uddin

Born and raised in Karachi, Pakistan, Shuja Uddin is a screenwriter, filmmaker and stand up comedian who graduated from Boston University with an MFA in Screenwriting. Currently based near Austin, Texas, Shuja has previously worked for the Austin Film Society, a non-profit film organization run by Oscar nominated filmmaker Richard Linklater, and his writings have been published in the Times of India, Film Companion and The Wire. He is working at imff2021 as Newsletter Coordinator.
You can follow him on Instagram: @snarky_karachite

Sweta Rajesh

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.

Anjali Zutshi

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.

Gita Lala

Founder and CEO of Daman Consulting, Gita 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. She 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 IMFF since it's inception.

Marina Bhargava

Marina has worked in enterprises from Benefits Consulting at Hewitt Associates to family owned plastics manufacturing. She was also Executive Director of GAACC. 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 was Business Development Director at the Multiethnic Education & Economic Development Center, Dallas.

Surabhi Sharma

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. http://surabhisharma.wordpress.com/

Chale Nafus

Chale 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!

Josh Hurtado

Contributing Editor and film critic for Screen Anarchy, Josh has been writing about Indian cinema for several years is a driving force in bringing independent & genre films from South Asia to film festivals around the world. He has been a Programming Consultant at Fantastic Fest ATX since 2013. Josh is a member of the Online Film Critics society since 2013 and a Rotten Tomatoes critic since 2017. He also works as a festival representative for Indian genre films.

Piyush Bhargava

Piyush Bhargava is Vice-President Global Operation at Dell Technologies and leads a global organization responsible for demand planning for Dell’s Infrastructure Solutions Group. Mr Bhargava has been with Dell for 20 years and serves on the boards of the Women's Business Enterprise National Council, FIRST in Texas Foundation, the Tauber Institute for Global Operations, University of Michigan, and the Rady School of Management, University of California. He's also on the board for Dell’s Asian Employee Resource Group.

Vijay Mahajan (Dr.)

Vijay Mahajan holds the John P. Harbin Centennial Chair in Business at Mccombs School of Business, UT Austin. He has received numerous lifetime achievement awards including 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 IIT Kanpur. He has authored 12 books.

Co-Founder

Alka Bhanot

Alka has extensive experience producing for Indian Television and was the Executive Producer for the first Late Night Show, ‘Movers & Shakers’ in India, which won numerous awards. In Austin, since 2003 her film credits include Bryan Poyser’s ‘Dear Pillow’ (2003) Winner, Best Narrative Feature, Atlanta Film Festival, Margaret Brown’s ‘Be Here To Love Me’ (2006) a film about the life and music of Townes Van Zandt and ‘Sunshine’(2009) a documentary about adoption and single parenthood by Karen Skloss which aired as part of the Independent Lens series on PBS. She also worked on the ‘Trevor Romain Video Series’ (2005) an animated kids show which aired on PBS.

Confirmed as an Austin native (yes the allergies finally got to her) Alka lives with her husband & two children.

Co-Founder

Tripti Bhatnagar

Tripti’s passion for cinema and her experience in the field give her a comprehensive understanding of the film process.She has been instrumental in supporting numerous award winning films through extensive research, interviews and marketing. Her body of work includes Lone star Emmy award winner -” A Fair to Remember”, a film that weaves together the colorful stories of the 125-year history of Dallas’ State Fair of Texas, a Cine Golden Globe award winner, “Louie,Louie: A Portrait in Parkinsons” that tells a story of a man’s courageous determination to retain his independence while fighting Parkinsons disease and “The Monster Among Us”, a remarkable and provocative film revealing the anti-Semitism in Europe today. While Tripti has pursued careers in the diverse fields of Finance, Marketing, Film production, Public Relations, Media and Information Technology Consulting, Film has always been her primary passion.

Tripti believes in the persuasive power of Cinema and to her, power to influence masses and thus to her, meaningful cinema has the potential to facilitate change. Through her efforts Tripti aims to connect socially conscious cinema with a wider audience.