Cover Stories / Cover Story: The Woman Shaping How The World Sees South Asian Cinema: Meenakshi Shedde

Cover Story: The Woman Shaping How The World Sees South Asian Cinema: Meenakshi Shedde

Cover Stories Sep 01, 2026

by Raj Girn

For four decades, Meenakshi Shedde has occupied a rare and influential place in global cinema: not simply watching films, but helping determine which stories cross borders, enter prestigious festivals, find international markets and become part of the cultural conversation.

Based in Mumbai, Meenakshi is a National Award-winning film critic, journalist, curator, programmer, script mentor and filmmaker whose work has taken her behind the scenes of some of the world’s most respected cinematic institutions. She currently serves as Senior Programme Advisor, South Asia, for the Toronto International Film Festival and has worked across festivals and organizations including Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Locarno, Busan, Dubai, the BFI and Cinémathèque Française. TIFF describes her as being widely influential in shaping global perceptions of South Asian cinema.

She has served on juries at more than 25 international film festivals, including the 2023 jury for Cannes’ Semaine de la Critique, or Critics’ Week. She has also mentored filmmakers through prestigious programs and funds connected to Sundance, Venice, Rotterdam, Locarno and the Asia Pacific Screen Lab. Her influence can be felt not only in the films that reach celebrated international stages, but also in the filmmakers whose stories become stronger through her guidance.

Yet perhaps the most powerful through-line in Meenakshi’s career is her commitment to what she calls “Cinema from the Margins”: stories created by Indigenous, caste-oppressed, LGBTQ+, disabled and otherwise historically underrepresented communities. For Meenakshi, cinema is not merely entertainment. It is a means of challenging power, expanding empathy, preserving memory and ensuring that those who have been pushed out of the frame are finally seen.

Her ability to place cinema within its wider social context earned her India’s National Film Award for Best Film Critic for 1998. Nearly three decades later, in January 2026, she was also honoured with the Sudhir V. Nandgaonkar Memorial Award for Best Film Critic at Mumbai’s Third Eye Asian Film Festival.

In this ANOKHI Magazine cover story, we speak with Meenakshi about the unseen influence of a film curator, the politics of who gets discovered, the changing international appetite for South Asian stories and why bringing marginalized voices to the centre of global cinema remains one of the most important chapters of her life’s work.

The Woman Behind The Work

RAJ GIRN: Meenakshi, you have spent four decades shaping conversations around Indian, South Asian and world cinema. When you look back, what do you believe first drew you so powerfully to film?

MEENAKSHI SHEDDE: When I was in college, Amrit Gangar, a beloved senior curator and film historian, ran a film society called Screen Unit where he would show us fantastic films from around the world on 35mm celluloid prints. He would share cyclostyled notes on each film before the screening, with select reviews and interviews of the director, and there would be exciting addabaji sessions after at some nearby Irani café. My richest learnings of cinema were not in a film class but guided by mentors and by hanging out with fellow film lovers over casual addabaji.

My lifelong film journey started there. I still remember he had shown us Hamlet, made by the Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev in 1964, a black and white classic whose hero, cinematic images, and music I still remember. I sat in the dark of the theatre, completely immersed in Hamlet’s tragedy and family horrors—his uncle killed his father and married his mother—while I secretly also had a crush on the handsome Russian actor playing Hamlet, Innokenty Smoktunovsky. In hindsight, I was mesmerised by the power of cinema to move you—audiences around the world, and years after the director has passed away.

Then, when I became a journalist—I was Assistant Editor at the Times of India in Bombay—I attended the first Mumbai Film Festival in 1997. I saw wonderful Indian films in regional languages for the first time with English subtitles in a theatre. I marvelled at the superb range of Indian films in Marathi, Malayalam, Tamil and Bengali, and reviewed them in the Times of India. Post-festival, I continued to review “parallel cinema,” as it was called, and the next year I was surprised and delighted to win the National Award for Best Film Critic, a Swarna Kamal, Golden Lotus medal, from the President of India, in 1998. Since then I have written for papers and media worldwide.

Cinema has taken me on a thrilling, deeply enriching, lifelong journey—I have been greatly fulfilled seeing many films from around South Asia and the world, helped large number of Indian and South Asian filmmakers and talents shine at prestigious international platforms such as the Toronto, Berlin, Locarno, Busan, Dubai and many other festivals and win awards worldwide.

I have travelled worldwide, been blessed with deep friendships I made along the way, and paid my bills via cinema—as a film curator, programmer, journalist, critic, jury member, script mentor, screener on film funds, professor, guest lecturer, and teaching film appreciation and film curating.

You studied economics before pursuing journalism and later film appreciation. How did that unconventional combination influence the way you examine cinema, culture and power?

Studying economics helped me understand how Hollywood’s domination of global film markets rides directly on the back of the US political global domination as a superpower. The US Marshall Plan of 1948, for instance, ostensibly gave funds to Europe to help it rebuild post-World War II, but was conditional on Europe lowering trade barriers to allow American companies to easily sell their goods, and indeed a majority of the Plan funds were in fact spent on buying US products. In film, the US-Korea Free Trade Agreement of 2006 was made conditional on South Korea halving its screen quota from 146 days to 73 days reserved for Korean films in theatres, to allow Hollywood films easier access to the Korean market.

But my 40-year career in journalism has shaped me far more as a person, exposing me to pressing socio-political and cultural issues facing the country. I was also an arts editor/writer for a decade, so I have a deep passion and some knowledge of film, dance, theatre, literature, photography, visual and plastic arts, architecture, etc.

My journalism on grassroots issues led to my working in development issues and advocacy for 30 years, mainly gender and water issues, and also education and health. I’m also Vice Chairperson on the board of Point of View, a non-profit that amplifies women’s voices in multiple media. So my film work is continually informed by my commitment to social issues, and I need both lives to feel complete.

Accordingly, I have been researching the films, arts and culture of marginalised communities since 2016, including by Indigenous people/adivasis/tribals, historically marginalised castes/Ambedkarites/Dalits, India’s North East and women filmmakers.

This year has seen a double-flowering of sorts: As Senior Programme Advisor, South Asia, Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF, I helped programme Angh, debut feature of Theja Rio, Indigenous Naga filmmaker, at the festival’s 51st edition, September 10-20, 2026. It plays in the TIFF Platform Competition section, selected over 9,000 film submissions. Moreover, from this year, the Platform winner will be automatically eligible for the Academy Award/Oscar for Best International Film. That’s an incredible achievement and an opportunity for an Indian filmmaker, let alone a debut Indigenous filmmaker.

Click On The Video Above To Watch | Meenakshi Shedde Introducing The “Changing the Narrative: Indian Indigenous Films: Cinema from the Margins” Program That She Curated For the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne | Video Credit: IG @meenakshishedde

On the other hand, I was also Curator for ‘Changing the Narrative: Indian Indigenous Films: Cinema from the Margins’ for the 17th Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (August 13-23, 2026), Australia, and did a Q/A with Indian Indigenous Naga filmmaker Theja Rio. The aim was to highlight Indigenous filmmakers’ “narrative sovereignty,” or the right to tell their own stories, in their own voices. I also wanted to showcase Indigenous films that not only dealt with contemporary themes like violent separatism and climate change, but were also told in modern cinematic languages. Theja Rio, for instance, belongs to the Angami tribe of Nagaland; he did studied his Master’s in Directing Fiction at the National Film and Television School, NFTS, London, and shot Angh on 16mm film. His films—along with the others’ films—smash stereotypes of Indian Indigenous people being merely people in loincloths with bows and arrows. This journey started a decade ago in 2016, when I was Curator of ‘The Die is Caste,’ for the Kochi Muziris Biennale, Kerala, 2017, with films and musicians from caste-oppressed Indigenous communities exploring socio-political issues.

But I’m very aware of the politics of representation, and am keen to discover or mentor a pool of Indigenous and/or caste-oppressed curators, especially women curators, who can curate their own films, arts and culture for themselves. I’ve also worked a lot in Impact of films, along with diversity, accessibility and inclusion, with various marginalised communities, including underprivileged youth, LGBT people, the blind and trauma survivors. But this impact work follows 30 years of grassroots work, not only top-down impact work because it is now the cool thing to do.

Was there a particular film, filmmaker or experience that transformed cinema from something you appreciated into the life you felt called to pursue?

Many filmmakers have left a deep impact on me, but I don’t think there was a single film or experience that led to the deeply fulfilling life I lead. Ritwik Ghatak’s Subarnarekha always haunts me and also feels like a stab in the stomach every time I see it. I first saw it at the Film and Television Institute of India, FTII Pune, where I did a Film Appreciation class, and I wept so bitterly, I crawled into the woods at the back of the cinema and wept for hours in the dark, not responding even when friends came with torches to look for me. I just wanted to be left alone to die. I have never had such a visceral reaction to a film.

But recently, Kaouther Ben Hania’s devastating The Voice of Hind Rajab recently wounded me deeply, I was weeping so much, I got breathless and had to rush out of the theatre, unable to breathe. Fellini’s La Strada is another film that rips my heart.

Sometimes it’s a song that leaves a hole in my heart every time I listen to it—one such is Hridoy amar prokash holo (my heart was revealed in the infinite sky), a Rabindrasangeet from Aparna Sen’s Paromitar Ek Din, in Bengali.

These are all milestones along my life journey, but yes, some of these films have been the breadcrumb trail that led to cinema becoming my muse, my dal-chawal, my ecstasy and my heaven.

You entered the film world during a period when relatively few Indian women held international authority as critics, programmers or festival decision-makers. What did you have to overcome to establish your voice?

There is no question that the world is deeply sexist and has always been. When I won the National Award for Best Film Critic in 1998, I was working as a senior journalist at a major Indian newspaper. My newspaper published the names of winners of all the 60 National Award categories, but deleted only my name from the list. Then the paper’s official film critic, a famous guy, stopped talking to me after I won the National Award. Another time I had the opportunity of a lifetime, invited on the FIPRESCI Jury of the Cannes Film Festival. I had applied for 10 days’ leave months before, but 48 hours before my flight, my leave was cancelled, with no reason given. Life is whimsical, and there’s no shortage of petty, insecure toads, but that’s OK.

Another time, I was Guest Curator for a major, year-long programme of Indian cinema at a major European festival. I was invited to Europe as a guest and seated in the audience at the inaugural. In the interval, I ran into someone who was President of the host organisation and when we introduced ourselves, she was outraged that I was not onstage leading the proceedings as Guest Curator, while a white man kept a spotlight on himself. But equally, I have been nurtured by many who mentored and encouraged me—Amrit Gangar, Maithili Rao, Iqbal Masud, Shanta Gokhale, Dorothee Wenner, and others.

How have your identity, upbringing and experiences as an Indian woman informed the stories you recognize, champion and refuse to overlook?

I’ve grown up as a middle class woman in Bombay. In my childhood years, I lived in a chawl, in a modest home with an asbestos roof, but they were the happiest days of my life. I went to St Xavier’s College, Bombay, that was run by Spanish Jesuits. Every Diwali, Fr Juan Macia, HOD of Sociology, would take students on field trips: that’s how I spent a month among the Garos and Khasis in Shillong, Meghalaya, sparking an early interest in Indigenous communities that continues to this day.

My identity as a journalist remains strong, but it has also grown into wider, deeper interests working with film, as well as development issues—gender, water, education and health.

I am at home in many worlds—on the red carpet of the Cannes Film Festival, and eating langar of roti-alu-pyaaz sitting on the floor of a gurudwara at midnight in Rajasthan, next to a leper beggar, because all the restaurants were shut.

Likewise, I was totally comfortable, when I was invited on the Cannes Film Festival Jury of the Semaine de la Critique/Critics’ Week in 2023, wearing an elegant handloom sari and Rs 100 rubber Bata shoes on the red carpet, as it was predicted to rain, and I wasn’t going to ruin my good leather shoes. I do #festivalsonalovebudget, usually borrowing friends’ saris to wear to festivals, so I can also showcase the extraordinary textile heritages of India. I am comfortable being who I am. I’ve lived alone and independently for much of my life. Naturally, I watch films through these perspectives.

The Power Behind Film Festivals

Most audiences see the glamour of a major film festival, but very little of the work that happens before a film is selected. What does a programmer or curator actually do?

For me, film programming work comes from daily lifelong commitment, because the volumes of films made in India is so high. There are a few reasons I’m really proud of Indian cinema. First, India makes more films than any other nation: we made 17,000 films a year in 2023, including 3,847 or nearly 4,000 feature films. By contrast, Hollywood is a kacha limbu (raw lemon), making barely 700 films in a good year. Of course, Hollywood’s box office revenue is several times that of India.

Moreover, India makes films in 55 languages and dialects, more than all the film languages of the EU–in a single country. Also, India is the only nation on the planet, where Hollywood is small change. After over a century of doing business in India, Hollywood is still barely about 10% of the Indian market—with no controls, and after releasing in English, and dubbed in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, giant film budgets and top stars like Tom Cruise and Timothy Chalamet. In other words, Indians love Indian films. . Sometimes, that can mean our trash rather than their trash.

I read fewer papers now, so I keep scanning social media and online news for new films and projects announced, film labs, and I keep track of films. Hundreds of South Asian filmmakers worldwide send me their film links all year round. I watch hundreds of films a year. 2023 was the most challenging year for me in terms of pressure of work. I worked with the Berlin Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival; I was on the Cannes Film Festival Jury of the Critics’ Week, and the Golden Globes’ International Voter, all in the same year. Two-three times a year, my body has a complete breakdown from watching films non-stop to complete the work load. This year, I did an appalling all day-all night-all day without sleep, just watching films to meet a deadline. Later I puked badly and collapsed from exhaustion; then I slept so soundly, I did not hear the hysterical jangling of two alarm clocks at all.

I’ve been working with the Toronto International Film Festival TIFF/TIFF Cinematheque since 2011, including as Senior Programme Advisor, South Asia, to TIFF the main festival since 2023. I was South Asia Delegate to the Berlin Film Festival from 1998-2025, 27 years. As well as worked with the Locarno, Busan, Dubai, Mumbai Film Festival and other festivals, the British Film Institute/BFI, Cinematheque Francaise, Paris, etc

I’ve spent decades watching hundreds of films from seven South Asian nations each year—India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, and recommending the best films to the festivals with which I work. I also receive a large number of South Asian Diaspora films from many continents. Although the number of films made is much higher each year, the actual number of strong films worth recommending to A-list festivals is not much higher each year—it remains about 12-15 films for me.

I actively look for films from marginalised communitiess—also Himalayan borders west and east, smaller languages, dialects in South Asian nations. I’m so proud that we were able to select Indigenous Naga filmmaker Theja Rio’s debut feature Angh this year, that plays in the Platform Competition. It is in the Konyak language. His previous short Ade-On A Sunday, that we recently screened in the Changing the Narrative: Indian Indigenous Films: Cinema from the Margins, that I curated for the 17th Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, IFFM, Australia, is in the Tenyidie language, that I have never heard before. His short film Remains is a terrific post-colonial pushback, with psychological horror genre elements, and is shot on 35mm film! So there’s always surprises and something to learn.

I also look out for debut features and women filmmakers and talent. Every time I review a film, I like to name the women talent before and behind the camera, including director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, production design, audio, music, production design, costume design, colourist, etc. I believe in the motto of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media: “If she can see it, she can be it.” It is so important to acknowledge and make visible women’s contributions—they are easily invisibilised by centuries of patriarchy, and that infuriates me. And of course, I watch out for films and works by marginalised communities–indigenous/adivasis/tribals and historically marginalised castes/Ambedkarites/Dalits, North East India and women.

As Senior Programme Advisor, South Asia, for TIFF, what qualities make you believe a film deserves to be introduced to an international audience?

I look for films that are original, that reveal something new, surprise or move me, even if it is about a familiar subject. Well made films that are locally rooted can often be universal in appeal. It takes time to understand the taste of the selection team at various festivals and earn their trust. So I am very pleased—and proud–that 14 films were selected at TIFF from India, South Asia and Diaspora in 2023, 11 films were selected in 2024, and 17 films and series were chosen in 2025 (my all-time record at an A-list festival), and at least 14 films in 2026.

Of the 14 films, 7 are Indian, 7 are South Asian/Diaspora films. The Indian films are:
– Theja Rio’s Angh (Platform Competition)
– Richie Mehta’s Phoolan (Special Presentation)
– Karthik Subbaraj’s Dorothy (Centrepiece)
– The late John Abraham’s Amma Ariyan (Report to Mother, Malayalam, TIFF Classics)
– Samjad’s Half (Malayalam, Midnight Madness)
– Shaunak Sen’s Termite (Short Cuts-2)
– Rahul Roye’s Aman (Short Cuts-6).

The South Asian/Diaspora films outside India are:
– Abinash Bikram Shah’s Elephants in the Fog (Nepal, Centrepiece)
– Rubaiyat Hossain’s The Difficult Bride (Bangladesh, Centrepiece)
– Jennifer Peedom’s Tenzing (US-Australia, Gala Presentation, starring Tom Hiddleston, Willem Dafoe, Tibetan actor Genden Phuntsok in the lead, Nepali-Tibetan actress Thinley Lhamo and Indo-Tibetan actor Tenzin Dalha, with CoProducer Pravesh Sahni)
– Zarrar Kahn’s The Lion Does Not Concern Himself (Canada, Short Cuts-2)
– Kalainithan Kalaichelvan’s Till the Milk Runs Dry (Canada, Short Cuts-5, produced by Shaista Roshan and Alison Almeida)
– Elham Ehsas’s Forgotten Spaceman (Afghanistan, UK, Short Cuts-2)
– Varun Raman and Tom Hancock’s Into the Betaverse (UK, Strange Cuts).

These are historic milestones for South Asian cinema at an A-list festival like TIFF, and for me personally, and an amazing achievement for every filmmaker selected, as each film has been picked from over about 9,000 submissions worldwide. The 17 works selected include eight films and series from India, four South Asian films beyond India, and five Diaspora films.

The difference between working for the Berlin and Toronto festivals is that while both TIFF and Berlin are among the Big Five global film festivals alongside Cannes, Venice and Sundance, the Berlinale’s DNA is historically political, whereas Toronto is well positioned to flag off the awards season, including the Academy Awards/Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs, etc, and as a gateway to the North American market. So I’m also alert about strong films that could potentially be considering Academy Award campaigns. Also, Berlin’s South Asian festival audience is hardly significant, whereas in Toronto, South Asians are the largest immigrant community, far ahead of the Chinese and Black communities, so there’s a natural potential audience base.

Premieres at TIFF can be a vital springboard for the awards season. Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound won the second runner-up, International People’s Choice Award at TIFF, and was later shortlisted for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.

Neeraj Ghaywan’s Homebound won the second runner-up, International People’s Choice Award at TIFF, and was later shortlisted for the Academy Awards for Best International Feature Film.

Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies, Lost Ladies, was selected at TIFF and this surely partially influenced its subsequent selection as India’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature.

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light won two Golden Globe nominations for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film, following its screening at Cannes and TIFF. She also earned worldwide attention during her Academy Awards campaign, even though her film did not win an Oscar.

S.S. Rajamouli’s Telugu blockbuster RRR had already had a theatrical release in India and in the U.S., but as a part of the film’s concerted Oscar campaign, the director was interviewed at TIFF in the Visionaries series in 2022. RRR went on to win an Oscar for Best Original Song, as well as a Golden Globe in the same category.

Lakshmipriya Devi’s Boong (Manipuri, debut) had its world premiere at TIFF, and later won the BAFTA for Best Children’s and Family Film. Rima Das’s Village Rockstars (2017), Lijo Jose Pellisery’s Jallikattu (2019), were both selected as India’s official entry for the Academy Awards following their TIFF world premieres.

I love going to TIFF, not just for its superb film selection, but also because, like Berlin, it’s a very public-facing, people’s festival. And when I was on the red carpet in 2023, crowds of fans screamed “Ki-ran, Ki-ran”. They mistook me for the Laapataa Ladies filmmaker, and I apologised, “So sorry, I’m not Kiran, but you should see her brilliant film Laapataa Ladies/ Lost Ladies,” and we all had a good laugh.

You have helped shape the presentation of South Asian cinema at major festivals for more than 25 years. How has the international perception of Indian and South Asian filmmaking evolved during that time?

In 1998, when I started working with the Berlin Film Festival, my boss was Dorothee Wenner and festival director was Dieter Kosslick. Mani Ratnam had entered his Dil Se (the Germans called it Von Herzen in German), and he wondered if he should send an “international cut” without the songs.

The film was selected by the Berlinale, and later, when I discussed the film as a member of the FIPRESCI Jury (Federation of International Film Critics) at Berlin, my fellow juror Derek Malcolm said mockingly, “What’s a Mani Ratnam film without the songs? Tell him we want only the songs!” Mainstream Indian film-makers are often apologetic about their use of songs at international festivals, but some Western connoisseurs feel that this is Indian cinema’s USP — provided you are in Mani Ratnam’s league, of course.

Soon after, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (2000) was selected in the Forum section at Berlin. I asked Dorothee Wenner why this most mainstream of Indian films was programmed in the experimental Forum section of the Berlinale? She replied, “We wanted our audiences to know and celebrate this huge and vibrant Bollywood film industry in India, which is not only the most prolific in the world, but where Hollywood has less than 10% of the Indian film market in India. It’s unthinkable for us that German cinema or any other national cinema can beat Hollywood in our own countries. We wanted to introduce our audiences to this vibrant film industry.” Bhansali, too, nervously chain-smoking outside the houseful hall showing his film, wondered, “Yaar, why do all these goras want to see my Bollywood film?” In fact, the audience warmly applauded the film, and the Q/A session with Bhansali went on till way past midnight.

The Berlinale, as it is called, has also frequently experienced the Shah Rukh Khan phenomenon; his presence always triggering mass hysteria amid international fans arriving from all over Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland and worldwide. At the premiere of Om Shanti Om (2007), a 99% white audience danced in the aisles during the song at the climax. This was remarkable as Berlin is not NRI territory.

I once asked Shah Rukh Khan why the foreigners were so crazy about him. He was most eloquent in explaining why audiences felt free to express their emotions while watching his films: “In the West you have a button for everything. You press a button for the elevator, to make orange juice... I think I am their button to cry., he said

In 2014, Imtiaz Ali’s Highway, starring Alia Bhatt, was in the Berlinale’s Panorama section, placing it in a higher echelon than the experimental Forum.

But Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy with Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh took it a notch higher in the even more prestigious Berlinale Special Gala in 2019. The stars have a huge fan base in Berlin and the kinetic story of the Hindi rapper emerging from Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, was a massive hit.

Also that year, Ritesh Batra’s Photograph was in Special Presentation, with Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sanya Malhotra.

Still, no Indian film has made it to the Berlinale Competition in 30 years, but Min Bahadur Bham’s Shambhala, from Nepal, and in Tibetan, was selected for the Berlinale Competition in 2024, marking a milestone for a South Asian film.

With its eclectic choices, the Berlinale has helped expand the cinematic imagination of Indian filmmakers. Moreover, it is much more politically engaged than most A-list festivals, backing films that would be difficult to release in India. Its daring political choices have included Rakesh Sharma’s four-hour documentary, Final Solution, based on the Gujarat riots of 2002, and Q’s (Qaushiq Mukherjee)’s feature, Garbage, whose protagonists include a right-wing paid social media troll, and an indigenous woman he has literally enslaved in chains at home. Both were powerful and provocative critiques of right-wing ideology, patriarchy and misogyny in contemporary India.

Beyond artistic merit, how much do politics, marketability, relationships and prevailing cultural narratives influence which films receive global attention?

You are absolutely right to raise these issues. Programming can be quite a challenge, because sometimes there are good years, like this year, 2026, when there are so many good films. Despite the nightmares of trying to make a film in India, the extreme shortage of funds, grants and loans, filmmakers make incredible sacrifices to make their films, sometimes selling their wife’s mangalsutra or mortgaging the house in order to do so.

So, if it is a good year and there are many, very good films, it is challenging to select just four or five South Asian films in the limited slots at any A-list festival.

The main criterion is artistic merit. Beyond that, there are complicated, practical considerations, such as: Is the film offering a world premiere? Is it a debut feature? Is it made by a woman? Is it by an Indigenous director? And so on.

Are international festivals genuinely becoming more inclusive, or are they sometimes presenting diversity without transferring meaningful power to the communities being represented?

The Berlin Festival and Toronto Festival, with which I’ve worked, are both genuinely committed to diversity, inclusion, women’s voices and debut filmmakers, and both go all out to promote them.

Also, regarding sexual harassment, molestation, and the #MeToo movement, it is critical that filmmakers, producers and everybody in the industry come together to support the survivor and punish the perpetrators. Otherwise, silence can have devastating consequences for the film industry and society as a whole.

Have you ever championed a film that was initially underestimated or not immediately understood by other decision-makers? What did you recognize in its cultural and cinematic value, and how did you advocate for it to gain wider recognition?

Take Theja Rio’s Angh, in the Konyak language of Nagaland, in India’s North East, that’s in the Platform Competition. It’s a powerful but very quietly made film: Rio believes in understatement. It comments on how the last Naga chieftain finds the ground slipping from under his feet with the arrival of the American missionaries and their religion threaten to erase their traditional culture and religion. It is modern in its storytelling and cinematography, yet, set in the 1960s, on the Indo-Burma border, it is shot on 16mm celluloid film, that gloriously captures the textures of a fast disappearing world. In fact, its Polish cinematographer Adam Pietkiewicz won the TIFF Variety Artisan Award for best cinematography even before TIFF began. How cool it is that a Polish cinematographer works in a Naga film!

I passionately believe in “narrative sovereignty” or the right of indigenous and marginalised people to tell their own stories, in their own voices. Few Naga images and voices make it to mainstream cinema; and not a single Naga film has been released in Nagaland’s theatres till date, as Rio reveals. He sees the film as an offering, “a gesture of remembrance, of pride, and of presence. A way of saying that we are here, that we have always been here, and that our stories deserve to stand alongside the rest of the world.”

Theja Rio, an Angami Naga filmmaker from Kohima, Nagaland, is a very gifted filmmaker. He did his master’s in Directing Fiction at the National Film and Television School (NFTS) near London for two years. It is astonishing for a young filmmaker today, but Rio really loves working on celluloid film. Many of his previous shorts are shot on celluloid. His Remains, in English, is a short shot on 35mm film, while his short Ade (On a Sunday), in the Tenyidie language, was shot on 16mm. I screened both films in ‘Changing The Narrative: Indian Indigenous Films: Cinema from the Margins’ for which I was Curator, at the 17th Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in August.

Likewise, I had recommended another indigenous film, Lakshmipriya Devi’s wonderfully feisty, feminist, debut feature Boong, in Manipuri, from the North East, to TIFF. Not only was the film selected for its world premiere at TIFF, but it went on to win the BAFTA for Best Children’s & Family Film. It became the first Indian film to win a BAFTA. Kiran Rao’s absolutely brilliant Laapataa Ladies (Lost Ladies, Hindi), which was selected at TIFF in 2023, was later selected as India’s Oscar entry for Best International Feature.

It was thrilling when I’d recommended Killa (Fort, Marathi) by cinematographer-turned-debut director Avinash Arun, to the Berlinale, and the film was not only selected, but it won the Crystal Bear in Berlin. Arun went on to direct the Paatal Lok series for Amazon. I’d also recommended Tanushree Das and Saumyananda Sahi’s Baksho Bondi (Shadow Box), with the incandescent Tillotama Shome, where it was selected in the Perspectives section for debut features in 2025, and went on to global acclaim.

Theja Rio is an Indigenous Naga filmmaker from Nagaland, India, bringing underrepresented voices from Northeast India to international audiences. A graduate of the UK’s National Film and Television School, his short films include Dissociate, Checkpost, Angh and Ade (On a Sunday). His debut feature, Angh, based on his 2021 short, has been officially selected for the TIFF 2026 Platform Competition. Rooted in Naga history, culture and language, Rio’s work reflects his commitment to telling Indigenous stories from within the community.

Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy, on a rapper from Mumbai’s Dharavi slums, that I recommended to Berlin, was selected in the prestigious Berlinale Special Gala in 2018, and was a massive hit. How many Muslim women directors can you name, who direct bold, brilliant, successful, mainstream films in India? [Other than Farah Khan and Shazia Iqbal]. Jayant Somalkar’s Sthal (A Match, Marathi), was selected at TIFF, then won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Feature.

At TIFF we have/had a range of South Asian/Diaspora films, including Abinash Bikram Shah’s Elephants in the Fog and Nabin Subba’s A Road to a Village from Nepal; Fawzia Mirza’s The Queen of My Dreams (Canada; English and Urdu, shot in Pakistan); Rubaiyat Hossain’s The Difficult Bride, Maksud Hossain’s Saba and Adnan Al Rajeev’s Ali from Bangladesh; Lawrence Valin’s French film Little Jaffna (French, Tamil); Kunsang Kyirong’s 100 Sunset in (Canada, Tibetan and English); Salar Pashtoonyar’s I Fear Blue Skies (Canadian-Afghan) and more.

Being open allows me the privilege to see and recommend brilliant films like Anand Patwardhan’s Vasudhaivam Kutumbakarm (The World is Family), a moving personal documentary questioning our loss of secular values. Or Lawrence Valin’s Little Jaffna, an explosively good, full-on French-Tamil masala film–both screened to great acclaim at TIFF.

So it gives me tremendous joy to discover new voices, as well as help Indian, South Asian and Diaspora filmmakers shine at top international and national platforms.

While I have travelled extensively in the North East since 40 years, I have been researching the films, arts and culture of marginalised communities since 2016. This includes indigenous/Adivasi/tribal communities, historically marginalised castes/Ambedkarites/Dalits, the North East and women. The Indian Indigenous film package I curated for IFFM included Indian languages like Tenyidie (Nagaland), Karbi, Assamese (North East), Kinnauri (Himachal Pradesh, West Himallayas), English and Cholanaikka, spoken by tribals who are among Asia’s last cave-dwellers, in the forests of Kerala, South India. It is thrilling to make real discoveries about your own country’s cinema in 2026.

Criticism, Influence and Responsibility

Winning India’s National Film Award for Best Film Critic established you as one of the country’s most respected critical voices. What does responsible film criticism mean to you?

Responsibility in film criticism is an evolving entity, and can means many things. Just old fashioned integrity in an era awash with paid reviews and social media marketing, is bravery worth saluting. Being open to all kinds of films, mainstream and beyond, including independent and regional language films, documentaries, shorts, experimental and animation films. Reviewing films while paying attention to the film’s socio-political and cultural context, not just its story or technical accomplishments. It means never mentioning how much money a film made—that’s the producer’s job, not the critic’s. It means systematically recognising and naming women and their contributions to cinema, both before and behind the camera.

How do you remain intellectually independent when reviewing or selecting work created by filmmakers with whom you may have longstanding professional relationships?

My roots are essentially as a journalist, so my work goes much deeper than being only a film critic. As a journalist, I can be cordial, but have traditionally always kept a distance from those I write about. So the same extends to my film reviews. Those old fashioned ethics mean everything to me.

But it is more complex than that: I promote good films in multiple ways that the filmmaker is often not even be aware of—because I don’t do it for commercial considerations, but because the films are so good—I recommend good films to festivals, I review them in established media, post about them on social media, write about them in books, teach about them at film lectures, film appreciation classes, and film critic and curator mentoring sessions worldwide.

Click On The Video Above To Watch | Meenakshi Shedde Receiving The Sudhir Nandgaonkar Memorial Award for Best Film Critic at Third Eye Asian Film Festival im 2017 | Video Credit: IG @meenakshishedde

Indian cinema is often discussed internationally as though it were one industry or aesthetic. What do global audiences and decision-makers still misunderstand about its extraordinary complexity?

Take, for example, an Indian gay love story. What may feel provocative or even groundbreaking in India may be something European audiences have seen 20 or 40 years ago. But a film like Karthik Subbaraj’s Dorothy, in Tamil, is really in a class of its own. He’s a big fan of Quentin Tarantino, and his film is very violent, but it is clearly self-critical, and it rips apart the violent patriarchy and misogyny that is part of the Indian DNA, more so in Tamil Nadu. With the horrific rollback of transgender rights under the Transgender Persons Amendment Act 2026, the film also courageously celebrates an Indian transwoman in a full masala/mainstream film backed by Jio Studios’ Jyoti Deshpande, Guneet Monga Kapoor and Achin Jain. I have heard doubts expressed about the film, and my simple question was: why is violence assumed to be cool when Quentin Tarantino or Park Chan-wook (Old Boy) use it, but not when Karthik Subbaraj uses it for a legitimate reason?

My job is to explain why a good film is, in addition to its merits, significant in the socio-political and cultural context of South Asia. And you have to be able to stand your ground and fight for films you believe in. These are the fragile threads on which the careers and fates of many wonderful independent filmmakers hang.

So we really need to build a robust ecosystem for independent cinema in South Asia to support our talents. I’m very grateful to have the trust of festival selection colleagues, including Cameron Bailey, CEO, TIFF and Robyn Citizen, Director of Programming & Platform Lead, TIFF, and Tricia Tuttle, Festival Director, Berlinale, and Dorothee Wenner and Jacqueline Lyanga, when I earlier worked with the Berlinale.

One of the challenges of being a curator globally is people still associate Indian cinema with Bollywood. Or Satyajit Ray (“Shottojit Rai,” please ;-). Eye roll. India makes films in about 55 languages and dialects, and each language represents a rich subculture of its own. There are intellectual, literary, sociological and anthropological layers, as well as distinct traditions of music, song and drama for each. It is true, the more local you are, the more global you can be, but that balance comes from skill or experience. Many cultural nuances are lost or misunderstood in translation, and my job is to evaluate a film, explain its socio-political-cultural significance, and suggest if it’s a good fit for a festival or not.

Whereas most big cinema cultures are largely monolingual. Almost all of France makes films in French, Germany predominantly in German, and America predominantly in English. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Minari, which includes Korean dialogue alongside English, but they’re a handful of films.

Can a critic separate artistic achievement from the personal conduct, politics or social impact of the artist who created the work?

For me, it would be very hard to separate artistic achievement from the personal conduct or politics of the artist. A slimeball is a slimeball, however artistic he/she may be.

Cinema From The Margins

You specialize in “Cinema from the Margins.” What does that phrase mean to you, both professionally and personally?

I’ve lived all my life in Mumbai, and fully feel the weight of Bollywood. Its mainstream masala format with song and dance, romance, action, thriller, happy-ending and broad-brush format makes it accessible in cultures worldwide, but many other Indian regional cinemas remain bonsais under its giant shadows.

So I feel all the more strongly that I should look out for films from everywhere in South Asia, and especially the geographic margins, as well as marginalised communities. Since 2016 I have been researching the films, arts and culture of Indigenous people, Adivasis and tribal communities, as well as caste-oppressed people, including Ambedkarites and Dalits, the Northeast and films made by women. Many of these are overlapping categories, and I am delighted to find an interest in these voices.

What is lost when stories by Indigenous, caste-oppressed, LGBTQ+, disabled and geographically marginalized communities are excluded from mainstream screens?

Theja Rio’s Angh is in fact, a spirited resistance against erasure of his Indigenous culture and roots. He looks at textures and detail—the relationship of Indigenous people to nature, religion, ancestors, the after life, language, clothes, food, ambient temperature.

He also explores a ritual concerning the dead, that by today’s mainstream mores may be seen as savage, but it is simply different from India’s mainstream practices—which treats even the living so despicably, still practising the caste system, patriarchy, misogyny, domestic abuse, rape of women, daily roll call of honour killings, banning women from entering temples or certain people from cooking midday meals at schools, banning mobile phones for women, lower wages—we have absolutely no aukat to point fingers at anybody else on the planet.

When our other cinemas fail to reach our screens, we lose a big part of what makes india culturally so richly diverse, secular, sophisticated and resilient, and why our culture has survived for centuries.

Who has traditionally been permitted to tell marginalized stories, and why is authorship just as important as representation on screen?

Traditionally, the stories that were heard were those of the people who owned the means of telling them: the microphone, the camera, the money to produce the film, and so on. The people traditionally excluded from society were also excluded from making their stories heard in the mainstream, without control on the means of expression.

What I’m really aiming to establish is ‘narrative sovereignty,’ which is the right of Indigenous or marginalized people to tell their own stories in their own voices. Take Martin Scorsese’s stunning film Killers of the Flower Moon, for example. It tells the story of the systematic exploitation and murder of the Osage people in America, whose land had made them extraordinarily wealthy through oil. It is an important and powerful film told by an ‘Indigenous ally’ as I call them, but ultimately the narrative is told through the perspectives of top notch White stars and a revered White filmmaker.

For the Indigenous perspective to dominate the narrative, it would ideally take an Indigenous filmmaker. Allies are important, but we need to hear far more original voices, with people speaking for themselves, rather than being spoken for. We need to be much more mindful of the politics of representation.

Many societies, including Canada, the US, Australia, New Zealand, and India, have infrastructure, policies, funds and festivals to redress historic wrongs through affirmative action and/or become more inclusive—also with respect to films and media. For example, in the US, organizations such as the Academy Awards, TIFF and Sundance, promote diversity, equity and inclusion with initiatives supporting BIPOC communities–Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, as well as women and non-binary filmmakers, with opportunities and resources meant for filmmakers who have been traditionally excluded from self-expression in the mainstream.

In India, the Kerala state government has been exemplary, allocating Rs 7,0000000 (Rs 7 crore annually; up to ₹1.5 crore per film) for selected women filmmakers, managed by the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC). In 2021, this amazing government produced four films, including two by women directors and two by filmmakers from the underserved Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe categories.

Your work has included accessible screenings for blind audiences and engagement with underprivileged youth, women, trauma survivors and historically marginalized communities. What have these audiences taught you about the true impact of cinema?

I would say because of my 30 years of grassroots work in development issues nationwide—women, water, education and health, my understanding of the impact of cinema is ground-up, rather than top-down. So my long-term work is supplemented by films; film impact is not an end goal in itself. Whereas professional filmmakers may tend to move to their next film after the term of their impact campaign is over, and fair enough.

Typically, the contemporary understanding of impact of films is to organise screenings outside the traditional festival circuit, for schools, colleges, NGOs and grassroots communities, to show people the film, and then analyse and discuss it. Whereas my work has grown bottom-up to begin with. So I have a different level of engagement with those audiences whom I have already worked with or known, and I don’t see them only as a target group on whom a film can have an impact. My relationship with them is as human beings, with whom I first engage in a deep and meaningful relationship, and subsequently I may or may not screen films for them as an audience for cinema.

Independent cinema in India has no ecosystem to support it, and filmmakers, frustrated with limited options on the film festival, theatrical or streaming circuits, have been considering other models for many years now.

For example, Paromita Vohra’s Working Girls, on the invisible labour of women across society, has had a sustained impact campaign across India for about a year.
Nihaarika Negi’s Tenfa, a hybrid film with documentary and fiction elements, is a marvellous Indigenous film that explores why oral story telling traditions can sometimes even save lives. Negi herself is Kinnauri and partly Indigenous. I recently showed it as part of the Indian Indigenous Films: Cinema from the Margins package that I curated for the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne.

The film would have been snapped up on the traditional festival circuit, but the filmmakers consciously stepped back and backed by The Storiculture Company, raised money for an impact campaign. They showed it in schools, colleges, NGOs and communities in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh, Mumbai and elsewhere, and discussed what the film was trying to say, connecting it to people’s real lives, and seeing how young people and communities could rethink their own futures and relationship with tradition. Such ‘off-circuit’ screenings have been in vogue in India for years, but they are gathering more momentum in the face of the unyielding mainstream juggernaut. Impact is being valued differently, beyond how many festivals a film has notched up. ‘Audience designer’ is a thing, and audience research, audience building and impact of films are also increasingly taught, alongside traditional disciplines like cinematography, sound, music, and editing.

One of my most moving experiences came from being a volunteer teacher of English and Life Skills for underprivileged teenagers at the Patuck Polytechnic College in Santa Cruz, Mumbai. I showed them the wonderful Canadian documentary Driving with Selvi by Elisa Paloschi. It is about a woman raised in an abusive family, who grew up determined to be financially independent. Eventually, she became South India’s first female truck driver.

With support from the Canadian Consulate in Mumbai, we screened the film for around 500 students. After the screening, I first shared stories of domestic abuse in families I had seen around me, where people can sometimes be let down by family and those they love the most. A lot of youngsters in the audience were weeping openly. I then encouraged them to share their stories if they were comfortable, without taking any names, because perhaps these stories are far more commonly experienced than we assume, and sharing can make us feel less alone and vulnerable.

One girl was crying because the film made her really miss her parents, who lived in distant Ratnagiri: they had sent her to Mumbai for higher studies. I asked the students, “Here is a girl in distress. How can we help her?” They spontaneously began collecting money to buy her a railway ticket to go home. Because Diwali was approaching, they also decided she should take her mother a sari as a Diwali gift, something she had never been able to do before. They raised enough for the gift and a return ticket. Months later, she came to my class and asked if she could join my NGO. I said I don’t run one, but you don’t need an NGO to listen to the heart, and hear it even when someone does not ask us for help. She nodded, her eyes brimming with tears, and left with a smile.

I did some sharing, guided the discussion and asked a few questions: the students did everything themselves. What moved me enormously was the level of trust they placed in me, choosing to voluntarily share shameful family betrayals in public, while keeping members anonymous, and allowing themselves to be absolutely vulnerable. I felt that something was very right with how things had happened so spontaneously, and was very humbled by their trust.

I’m also Vice-Chairperson of Point of View (POV), a non-profit headed by Bishakha Datta, that has been working on gender issues, digital culture, disability and inclusion since 30 years. We worked with the Mumbai Film Festival for inclusive screenings for blind and sighted audiences. On every seat, we left a satin sash so that sighted audience members could blindfold themselves, if they wished, and experience the film as a blind person might. It was optional: they could watch the film normally and simply hear the audio description, but for those who chose to use the blindfold, it would be a real revelation, I promised them. I knew from long experience that the blind intensely love movies, and if you ever watch a movie with a blind person, later, he/she will tell you scores of details you never noticed.

We presented two films, Tu Hai Mera Sunday and Turup with live audio description, explaining the action on screen in scenes where there is action but no dialogue, so that blind audiences could fully understand everything on screen. We got an overwhelming response from the blind. They were so excited, many said it was the first time in their lives they ever went to a movie alone, because they could understand it fully, and didn’t need someone to explain things to them. Others said, “The blind always laugh last,” as someone has to explain the joke to them first. “It felt great getting the joke and laughing with everyone else.”

Another time, POV screened the wonderful Secret Superstar, audio described, produced by Aamir Khan Productions (AKP) and directed by Advait Chandan, for a group of about 20 adult blind women at the Smt Kumudben Dwarkadas Vora Industrial Home for Blind Women in Andheri. It is a fantastic, daring feminist film, with a young teenage girl, a secret musician in hijab ,who pushes her mother, who is being violently abused by her husband, to get a divorce and live freely, while pursuing her own dream of becoming a singer. Afterwards, we unpacked the film together. I shared things from my own life and neighbourhood, and slowly, slowly, the women began opening up.

Some of the blind women were astonished that I lived alone. They would ask me, “Is that allowed? Are you allowed to be single? Are you allowed to lead your own life and make your own decisions?” They had simply never known anyone who lived this way.

Because they could not see me, I specially wore a perfume so they could smell it. I wore a sari with embroidery that they could touch if they wanted to, and a necklace, earrings and anklets with tiny bells, so they could hear me move. Sometimes I would hold their hands, so they could touch me. I wanted to be more than a voice to them. And when you share stories of grief and pain, and how you have overcome them, it breaks the ice and allows people to connect at a much deeper level.

Years ago, I had also directed a film called Looking for Amitabh, in which I interviewed only blind people about their mental impressions of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan. I edited the film so that Amitabh was evoked through all the senses except vision- through sound, smell, touch and an extraordinary sixth sense. It showed at the Kala Ghoda festival, then travelled to 12 festivals including Busan, River to River Festival in Florence, and Film South Asia in Nepal.

A life-altering experience came through my work with the Kochi-Muziris Biennale in Kerala. In the 2016–17 edition, I curated a programme called ‘The Die is Caste’. I showed films dealing with caste issues in different languages from across India, and also curated Dalit and Indigenous musicians and dancers from different parts of the country.

The audiences responded to the programme very warmly—they were all on their feet during the music sessions. That was a real eye-opener for me. I began to reflect much more on the possibilities of the arts and cinema being used for social change, or at least looking for different ways to engage with people on social issues, nudging them to be a little more mindful.

That set me off on a long journey of research and work with Dalit, Adivasi and Indigenous film, arts and culture. Cinema can change the way we think, the way we relate to one another, and how we understand people whose lives may be very different from our own.

SnapInsta.to_762998065_18612052645020013_6683494048770666558_n

SnapInsta.to_763378797_18612052699020013_1829551413210699351_n

SnapInsta.to_762691731_18612052708020013_2017257572987591051_n

SnapInsta.to_762324563_18612052681020013_1071008751142454695_n

SnapInsta.to_762866874_18612052675020013_1614902217258925384_n

SnapInsta.to_762866912_18612052690020013_8171725463495348776_n

SnapInsta.to_764401038_18612052663020013_6702304881270994456_n

SnapInsta.to_762432259_18612052660020013_5382025917830209959_n

As curator of Indian Indigenous Films: Cinema from the Margins for the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2026, what conversations do you hope this program will generate?

Narrative sovereignty, the right of marginalised and Indigenous people to tell their own stories is backed by policies, infrastructure funding and festivals in nations, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More Indigenous and marginalised filmmakers need to be enabled to tell their own stories, in their own voices, because their gaze will naturally be different from somebody speaking on their behalf, however empathetic.

I also hope this programme encourages audiences to see Indigenous and marginalized communities with new eyes. Indians can be deeply racist and deeply hierarchical, and many assume an Indigenous person is simply someone in a loin cloth with bows and arrows, and I wanted to smash every stereotype about them, and surprise them with their range and modernity of storytelling.

Take Theja Rio, for example. He is an Angami Naga filmmaker from Nagaland, a very gifted and accomplished filmmaker, who studied at the National Film and Television School in the UK, has made many acclaimed short films. Now his debut feature Angh has been selected at the Toronto International Film Festival, TIFF.

Visibility is critical. Dalit, Indigenous and Adivasi communities in India are easily invisibilised by mainstream media and cinema, or reduced to stereotypes. That makes it easier for politicians to misguide the masses via Whatsapp University, to demonise an entire community or race, reduce people to labels like insurgent, ‘Red Corridor’ or Communist, and in political shorthand, anti-national, that generic catch-all term for anyone who disagrees. Often, not always, they are simply people like you and me, trying to make a living and get by, often caught between armed groups on one side and the army, police or other state forces on the other.

At the same time, many of these traditional communities have protected the forests, land and natural resources, on which all of us depend, for centuries, yet they may have very little formal power over the land. So I hope these films create greater empathy for the people, the land, their stories and the issues they are dealing with, which connect us all.
Secondly, I’m really keen to discover curators among Indigenous/Adivasi/Dalit curators, especially women curators—or if not, then to mentor cohorts of Indigenous curators, as well as curators from historically marginalized castes, including Ambedkarite and Dalit communities, North East and women, so that they can curate films, arts and culture for themselves. I’m keen to get the politics of representation right.

I’m very grateful to Mitu Bhowmick Lange for giving me the opportunity to create the programme for IFFM: she knows I have been working in this field for around 10 years. But I’m also very clear that I see my own role as a placeholder, a facilitator and an enabler. I am not Indigenous, and my gaze is different from an Indigenous person’s own gaze. For me, this journey is also about continuing to understand best practices, cultural safety and the responsibilities and acknowledgements involved when you are trying to empower a community from the outside.

Mentorship, Legacy and the Future

Through programs connected to Sundance, Venice, Rotterdam and the Asia Pacific Screen Lab, you have helped filmmakers develop their scripts and ideas. How do you strengthen a filmmaker’s vision without imposing your own voice upon it?

I never, ever, ever impose my own voice as Script Mentor. That’s not my job. My job is to help the writer or filmmaker discover their own voice and their own strengths, convictions and and motivations, and to have greater clarity about what they are saying and why they are saying it through this story.

Early on, I ask them: Why do you want to make this film, and why do you want to make it now? Filmmaking is not for the faint-hearted, so I try to understand their motivation. Usually, something has happened to them, something they have observed, read about or experienced, that has provoked the writing of the film.

I try to remind them of that core reason they were moved to express themselves through a film in the first place. Usually, there is a very clear emotional connection to that original point, and it gives them greater clarity about what I call the spine of the film. It helps them stay on track, because it is very easy to get lost in plots, sub-plots and unnecessary drama.

For example, perhaps the ending isn’t working, or there are too many plotlines, or not enough drama, or the film is very slack. My job is to help them identify a clear through-line, clarify motivations, tighten the narrative, make the story stronger and more convincing, and have plot points that move you. I encourage them to think of an interesting and possibly unexpected ending, rather than an obvious happy or sad ending that the audience was expecting anyway. My job is not to suggest the ending. My job is not to give them fish, but to teach them to fish. They have to come up with the ideas themselves. It has to be their own voice, their own imagination and suggestions how to make the film better. I simply guide them from the outside. That’s how I work.

We discuss: Can we add layers and non-verbal communication? Can the film evoke different emotions? Can we have multiple meanings in the same scene? Can we add metaphors instead of dialogues? What is the music saying that’s not already in the film? Can we make stillness engrossing? Can we make silences eloquent?

With streaming platforms, artificial intelligence and increasingly data-led commissioning transforming the industry, what excites and concerns you about the future of filmmaking and film criticism?

I did an interview maybe 20-25 years ago, I think it was with the wonderful Jean-Claude Carrière, the French screenwriter who collaborated extensively with Luis Buñuel and also worked with Peter Brook, including writing the stage adaptation of The Mahabharata. I had asked him a similar question, about how the increasing use of computers would affect the future of film. And he replied, “Oh, that’s easy. Computers will make all the films, and all the other computers will go to see them.” I laughed and laughed, and thought he was terribly charming.

So I think it is good to be somewhat wary and even cynical, but it is also important to remain open. There are many very useful applications of AI, particularly for handling boring, routine work, and processing large amounts of data that can take the drudgery out of our lives.

What is important is that we retain creative control over the storytelling: what stories we want to tell and how we want to tell them.

I like to imagine I keep AI on a leash, with limited application in my life. But I know it is kind of inevitable, and it is wise to step off the tracks of a rushing, oncoming train.

After four decades of influencing which stories are seen, supported and remembered, what work still feels unfinished, and what do you want your legacy in global cinema to be?

I think all of my work over these 30 or 40 years in cinema, alongside my work in journalism and what I call development issues, has deeply satisfied me.

But at this stage of my life, what I find especially satisfying is being able to empower marginalized curators and filmmakers: Indigenous filmmakers, filmmakers from historically marginalized castes, women filmmakers and filmmakers from the Northeast. I would find it deeply satisfying if I could help them claim their own space and voice in the mainstream. I would love to work with children and young adults: they may be more open to change than adults.

I would also like to do more work in the impact space. Many documentaries and fiction films are made with the intention of addressing socio-political issues, but they don’t really leave an impact on society because the deeper connection with the community is not built to enable deeper conversations about behavioural change, which doesn’t happen in a hurry.

Film is an enormously powerful medium. Governments around the world have understood that and used cinema as propaganda, from Russia to Germany, Italy, North Korea, USA and India. I think it is very important to understand the power of film as a medium of storytelling and to use that power for the right things: to help make society better, more peaceful, compassionate, and much happier.

My personal dreams are not very grand. They are actually very small and grounded. Because I’ve already got a lot out of life, far more than I could have ever dreamed of.

If there is a legacy I would like to leave, it would be to help marginalised filmmakers find their own voices, and take their rightful place in the mainstream, and use cinema in ways that can have a meaningful impact on society.

Up Close And Personal With Meenakshi

1. The first film that made you fall in love with cinema?

Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev’s Hamlet of 1964. I must have seen it when I was in college, and I still have a crush on the actor who played Hamlet, the very fine Soviet actor, Innokenty Smoktunovsky.

2. A film you wish you could experience again for the very first time?

Ritwik Ghatak’s Subarnarekha.

3. One filmmaker whose body of work every aspiring critic should study?

Satyajit Ray.

4. The most beautifully directed film you have ever seen?

Charulata by Satyajit Ray.

5. A performance you consider nearly flawless?

This might be an unusual answer, but I would say the voice of Hind Rajab in Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab.

It is not a performance in the conventional sense. It is the actual voice of a small child trapped in a car in Gaza, calling the Palestinian Red Crescent for help after her family had been killed around her. All we hear is her voice desperately asking for somebody to come and rescue her.

The film is told from the viewpoint of the Red Crescent workers receiving her calls, with Palestinian actors reconstructing the drama around those real recordings. It is how the director has chosen to use Hind’s actual voice that makes it so extraordinarily powerful.

It was such a haunting film. I was weeping so much that I actually had difficulty breathing and had to rush out of the hall to get some fresh air. It was a very visceral reaction.

6. A film widely regarded as a masterpiece that you would challenge?

I’ll have to come back to this one. Some of these questions are thoughtful; I don’t have an immediate answer to all of them!

7. An underrated Indian film that deserves a much larger global audience?

Gurvinder Singh’s Rehmat. It’s an exquisite film that was recently shown at the Locarno Film Festival, with Naseeruddin Shah and a host of very fine actors.

It brings together three stories that merge into each other, and what stands out for me is the very, very deep level of compassion. There is kindness to strangers, forgiveness and patience with people who may not fit neatly into the regular boxes we create for them.

It also revisits the legacy of Partition in Punjab and, very delicately, questions: Who is the enemy? Who decides who the enemy is? These were actually your relatives before some politician drew a line and made them two countries.

For me, it is a complete counterpoint to what is going on in Gaza. It is a very gentle and delicate film, haunting, exquisitely written and beautifully performed. This is a film I will remember for a long time.

8. A South Asian filmmaker the world should be watching right now?

Abinash Bikram Shah from Nepal. A fantastic director.

His Elephants in the Fog was at the Cannes Film Festival this year, where it won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize, and it is selected at the Toronto International Film Festival.

He also directed the exquisite short film Lori, which received a Jury Special Mention at Cannes in 2022. He is also a very accomplished screenwriter who has written/co-written for some of Nepal’s leading filmmakers, including Deepak Rauniyar’s Highway (Berlin), Min Bahadur Bham’s Black Hen (Venice) and his Shambhala (Berlinale Competition, 2024). He is definitely somebody the world should be watching.

9. A film from a marginalized filmmaker that fundamentally changed your perspective?

I would say Sairat by Nagraj Manjule. He comes from a marginalized community but, over the years, has moved swiftly into the mainstream, which is a good for him, although ot can also be a mixed blessing.

Sairat is particularly close to my heart because we had invited the film for its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival when I worked with them.

What changed my perspective was that this was a film in Marathi, a regional Indian language, led by very raw performances by mainly non-actors, but that rawness had enormous power.

And the accomplished three extraordinary things unique in world cinema as far as I know. First, this Marathi film had a world premiere at an A-list festival like Berlin, so it was unquestionably world cinema. Two, it was one of the biggest Marathi box-office hits. Third, it sparked spontaneous social impact on the ground.

Inspired by Sairat, Dr Narendra Dabholkar’s Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), or Committee for the Eradication of Blind Faith, had its branches support inter-caste or inter-faith couples that had eloped, whose relationships were opposed by their families. They helped them find work, a place to stay, or remain safe until they were legally old enough to make their own decisions. I’m not aware of any other film that has accomplished all three things: A-list festival recognition, huge commercial success, and social change that spontaneously comes from the people. I find that totally admirable.

Another film I would mention is KS Unnikrishnan Avala’s Thanthapperu (Life of a Phallus), a jaw-droppingly original film, set among the Cholanaikka community, one of Asia’s last cave-dwelling Indigenous communities, in the forests of Nilambur in Kerala, south India. It swept three major awards at the International Film Festival of Kerala in 2025.

The storytelling is remarkable. The narrative and cast are both drawn from the community, who are in some ways acting out their own lives. There is a deep commitment to authenticity. The director is not from the tribe, but he has been working with them for over 15 years, and has made a number of features and written a book set in the community. I would really encourage people to see it, if they get the chance.

10. The most important quality in a great film: story, direction, performance or emotional truth?

Emotional truth.

11. Subtitles or dubbing?

Subtitles. But I would also not like subtitling to become a monopoly of English.

I once saw a most exquisite Iranian film, Baran, meaning “rain,” with Marathi subtitles, and I thought it was fabulous. I think films should be subtitled in different local languages so that more people can understand and experience them.

12. Theatrical experience or streaming at home?

Theatrical, for sure.

When people see films together, then go out for addabaji over a chai, discussing the film, discussing life, is the community that is the glue that sustains the film industry. It is a social glue that holds us together as a society—there are not many community events which are without religion/dance/music, where a random, diverse group can bond together for a while, and acknowledge their humanity. You don’t get that from watching films on streaming at home. Once that glue is gone, the film industry will be in dire trouble—it already is.

The other thing is that the theatre is one of the last few spaces where people of different faiths, communities and religions come together for a while, without necessarily knowing who the other person is. It doesn’t matter who anybody is. You are all there together, communing with one film.

So watching cinema in theatres can also be a very powerful social glue, and that is a wonderful thing for the stability, peace and prosperity of society.

13. Cannes, Berlin, Venice or Toronto… which festival has the most distinctive personality?

How to choose? Each festival has its own very distinct personality.

But I will forever remember an incident at the Berlinale. Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om, that melodramatic, zany, self-mocking film about the Bollywood world, had a premiere there. The audience was almost entirely international, with people from Germany and many other countries, and hardly any Indians—but they were all dancing in the aisles to “Deewangi Deewangi” during the end-credits. It is one of those moments I will always cherish.

And, in complete contrast, Berlin could also show something like Rakesh Sharma’s Final Solution, a very daring four-hour documentary on the Gujarat riots of 2002. Berlin has space for all of these things.

14. The greater critical offence: a predictable film or a pretentious film?

A pretentious film.

15. One film you would take with you to a desert island?

Padosan, which has Mehmood’s delightful song “Ek Chatur Naar.” I would definitely like that!

16. A film ending you still think about?

Ritwik Ghatak’s Subarnarekha.

Ishwar is despairing and gets drunk, and ends up in a brothel where his own sister, Sita, who is also desperate, is waiting for her first client. In horror and shame, Sita slits her own throat.

But her son Binu is unaware of all this. At the end, he is happy, believing that he and Ishwar are walking towards the happy home his mother had always told him about.

For me, it is one of the most heartbreaking and poignant endings in film history.

17. One question audiences should ask themselves after watching any film?

Why did the filmmaker make this film? What was the filmmaker trying to say through this story?

18. Complete this sentence: “Cinema matters because…”

Cinema matters because it can offer the richest, truest experience of life outside of literature.

Meenakshi Shedde’s career reminds us that cinema does not reach the world by chance. Behind every groundbreaking film that crosses a border is often someone willing to recognize its value before the rest of the world does, someone prepared to challenge convention, advocate for an unfamiliar voice and insist that important stories be given the space they deserve.

Across four decades, Meenakshi has used criticism, curation, mentorship and filmmaking to widen that space. Her influence extends beyond festival programs, jury rooms and published reviews; it lives in the filmmakers she has guided, the audiences she has challenged and the marginalized communities she has helped bring from the periphery into the centre of the cinematic frame.

Meenakshi, thank you for sharing your remarkable journey with ANOKHI Magazine and reminding us that choosing which stories are seen is never a neutral act, and that cinema, in the right hands, can become both a mirror of society and an instrument for changing it.

The following are some of the South Asian films officially selected for TIFF this year:

Phoolan by Richie Mehta — *Phoolan* by Richie Mehta

Strong Son by Ian Bawa — *Strong Son* by Ian Bawa

Dorothy by Karthik Subbaraj — *Dorothy* by Karthik Subbaraj

The Difficult Bride by Rubaiyat Hossain — *The Difficult Bride* by Rubaiyat Hossain

Elephants In The Fog by Abinash Bikram Shah — *Elephants In The Fog* by Abinash Bikram Shah

Report To Mother by John Abraham — *Report To Mother* by John Abraham

Editorial Reference Sources

The following public sources were consulted to verify key career details referenced in the introduction. Additional biographical information was supplied directly for the interview brief.

Toronto International Film Festival: Programmer profile, Meenakshi Shedde
La Semaine de la Critique, Festival de Cannes: 2023 Jury
Asia Pacific Screen Academy: Meenakshi Shedde member profile
British Film Institute: Meenakshi Shedde profile
Network of Women in Media, India: 2026 Best Film Critic Award

Raj Girn

Author

Raj Girn is an award-winning media personality, confidence coach, consultant and mentor. Bio: Click here to know about founder, Read testimonial...

COMMENTS

Cover Story: A Different Way To Heal: Dr. Shireen Fernandez On Combining Science, Sound & Ayurveda

Cover Story: The Woman Shaping How The World Sees South Asian Cinema: Meenakshi Shedde

by Raj Girn

Raj Girn

COMMENTS

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE