Programme Committee
Head of Programme
Festival director Oliver Mahn
Curator
Therese Hayes
Born and raised in France, Therese Hayes’ interest in Indian culture started in London, with the influence of her Indian dentist. Later she studied Far Eastern Civilization at the University of Washington, USA. Twenty years ago Mrs. Hayes became one of the initial sponsors when the Palm Springs International Film Festival was created. Although still a sponsor, her primary dedication has been to bring quality Indian cinema to the Palm Springs Festival as well as other festivals, including the Bangkok International Film Festival. Mrs. Hayes used to be a consultant coordinator for the Mumbai Film Festival. She is on the board of Film Trust India and various other advisory panels. In 2003 she co-founded Dreamnotes Inc. with Ustad Nishat Khan for the promotion of Indian Classical Music and produced four concerts.
Curator
Uma da Cunha
Uma da Cunha’s work in cinema spans programming, writing and casting. Her career started in 1974 with the Directorate of Film Festivals, Govt. of India. In 1978, she set out on her own, organising film festivals and related events in India and internationally, writing for leading newspapers and publications, casting for films such as Deepa Mehta’s ‘Water’, Mira Nair’s ‘Kamasutra’, Jane Campion’s ‘Holy Smoke’, Dev Benegal’s ‘English, August’ and Ashutosh Gowariker’s ‘Lagaan’.
She has assisted major festivals such as those at Cannes, Berlin and Venice and more recently, Toronto and Busan. As well as having been a founder-advisor to several Indian film festivals held outside of India (London, Los Angeles, Stuttgart), Uma da Cunha has also held Indian film sessions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, The Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Image. In 1966 she edited ‘Montage – A Monograph’ on Satyajit Ray. In 2009, she served on the International jury for the Cannes Film Festival’s section Un Certain Regard. She has also programmed a section, now called ‘Discovering India’, at the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star ever since its inception.
In October 2018, she launched the organisation On Global Screens, to support quality cinema through services including subtitling in English, casting, programming, and festival consultancy. At its forefront is the journal On Global Screens (formerly Film India Worldwide), focused on India’s independent and regional cinema movement, for which she is editor and publisher. Uma da Cunha currently writes on film festivals for the online daily newspaper TheCitizen.in.
