Chitro Neogy is a software professional and technology entrepreneur, with a keen interest in community focused initiatives. Currently he is a senior software development manager at Wells Fargo Corporation. His professional career includes technology leadership in companies like Fidelity Investments, Dell EMC, Wellington Management, AOL and Blue Cross Blue Shield, in addition to his own startups. Chitro completed his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Kanpur, continuing on for a MS from the University of Cincinnati and later a MS from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. With an eye to addressing unmet cultural and literary needs of South Asians in North America, Chitro co-founded the non profit Indian Arts Boston Inc, which first launched the Caleidoscope Indian Film Festival of Boston in 2015.
Indranil Ghosh, born in Kolkata, India, is a self-taught artist. He is software engineer, but has keen interest in arts and music. Indranil loved to draw and paint in his childhood. Later in high school, he fell in love with the technique of water color. In spite of his busy schedule, he still finds time to draw and paint. To Indranil, painting is a form of meditation, which helps him calm down and pass through difficult times.
Kaushik Ghosh is from Kolkata India and grew up with a love for
movies, theater and arts. Starting from his college days and
continuing later at work, Kaushik has been involved with various
cultural committees, movie clubs and diversity groups. From his many
years of experience in the tech industry, Kaushik is excited about the
opportunities that come from blending arts, business and tech. Kaushik
loves photography, traveling around the world and telling a good
story. When not traveling physically, he travels virtually through the
medium of cinema
Debashree resides in Boston and being an aficionado of all genres of films, she had been a long term supporter of Caleidoscope Film Festival.
Premendra Mazumder is working on cinema in versatile capacities. As a film critic, he writes extensively in many publications worldwide. He is the General Secretary of the India Chapter of the International Federation of Film Critics FIPRESCI: Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique and Editor of its quarterly film journal E-CineInda. He is working as the advisor, program director and curator for several International Film Festivals in India and abroad. He has served on the Jury of many International Film Festivals. He has authored several books on cinema and other issues. He has delivered many lectures and conducted many workshops in different film festivals and educational institutions worldwide. He is an activist of the film society movement for more than four decades and presently holds the posts of the Secretary Asia-Pacific of the International Federation of Film Societies and Vice President of the Federation of Film Societies of India.
Bill Campbell wrote and directed his first stage play when he was still in high school. While pursuing a career in technology management, he discovered that his then-teenage children had an interest in movies, and he started to support them in that. In a short time his interest and enthusiasm for film making surpassed that of his kids, and he’s been directing and producing short narrative films and, occasionally, informational or promotional videos for many years now. He enjoys foreign films, and appreciates the different perspective they bring to the stories presented on the screen. This is his fifth year serving on the jury for
Caleidoscope.
Swati Srivastava arrived in the U.S. as a software engineer but with dreams to be a film-maker. After a long wait for her Green card, she switched careers. Swati has since written and directed several short films, short documentaries, and music videos. Her films have played at numerous film festivals and won several awards, including the “most important story of the year” award from CNN-India. Swati is currently working on her first feature; a light-hearted romantic drama with Indian characters living in America pursuing their own immigrant dreams!
Swati regularly shoots & directs “Behind The Scenes” on other films, has written several screenplays and working on her first sci-fi book called “The Ninth Planet”. Swati lives with her partner; Mark Bartosik in a “Net-Zero Energy” house that has been covered by various media including NBC, for its unique features.
To know more about Swati, go to:
www.imdb.me/Swati
www.TiredAndBeatup.com
Ajay Jain grew up in Calcutta, India. He worked as a Company Secretary for a merchant banking company in Kolkata after his M.Com and ACS. Later, he moved to Boston to work for Waltech, an IT Consulting/Staffing company, where he currently manages day-to-day operations. He also earned an MBA from Framingham State University. In Kolkata, Ajay joined a group theatre to overcome his shyness and stage fright and continued his passion for theatre in Boston after a long gap. He has acted in dozens of plays in English and Hindi and is an active troupe member of True Story Theatre, a playback theatre company based out of Arlington. He has also acted in several short films. Ajay and his wife Rekha enjoy being members of Calcutta Club as it brings back so many memories of the city they both love.
Howard-André Phillips has lived in the Boston area since 1988. He grew up in a bi-lingual home, and lived in France, Germany and in several states in the USA. With degrees in Fine Arts and Foreign languages, as well as Film and Television, Howard has worked at Avid Technologies, being part of the team that won that company’s second Technical Oscar™ in 1999. He also has freelanced in the motion picture and television industry, working with Jon Fauer, ASC, with his brother Michael Phillips, who managed Boston’s first 24P feature-film digital post production facility, The Edit House. He has translated and helped subtitling the feature documentary ‘Cinematographer Style’, has worked intent-editing, after several years operating cameras, editing, and associate producing features films such as ‘Jack in the Box, the Movie’ (dir Frank Kerr).
He has been a film instructor and film festival judge in local, national and internal festivals such as the Woods Hole Film Festival, the Emerson Student Film Festival, the International OnLine Film Festival. He currently teaches and creates new curriculum solutions in the US and in Mexico.
Sujoy De is an actor based out of New York who has acted in several movies and TV shows. He has credits with Colin Quinn, Aziz Ansari, Jason Jones, Louie C.K, and on The Late show with David Letterman.
Recently filmed a role in Colin Quinn created/directed sitcom Pilot – “LUNCHEONETTE” appeared on Netflix’s EMMY-winning show with Aziz Ansari and on the TBS comedy “THE DETOUR” co-created by Samantha Bee.
Other TV/Films credits include Martin Scorsese directed “D&G” short, “LOUIE” (FX), “THE BIG C” (Showtime). He’s appeared in Recurring roles in various Sketches on the “Late Show With David Letterman”.
Commercials include Coca-Cola/JetBlue, Xerox, Comcast and many others.
PIT-NYC IMPROV graduate. He can be seen doing sketch and Improv shows at the PIT in New York.
Classically Trained Actor. Regional stage credits include Homebody/Kabul (Best of Boston mention), Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Romeo & Juliet, Comedy of Errors, Santaland Diaries, Stop Kiss etc.
Vincent Bohlinger is Professor and Director of Film Studies at Rhode Island College, where he teaches courses on film history, theory, analysis, and production. His principal research area is Russian and Soviet cinema, and since 2013 he has been a Center Associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. He earned a PhD and MA in Film from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a BA in English from the Johns Hopkins University.
Ratee Apana is the executive director of the Indian Film Festival of Cincinnati. She curates content that is universal in its content and speaks to our common humanity. She established the Indian Film Festival of Cincinnati to “engage diversity through film” With so many South Asians working in the US, bringing our shared humanity through stories that engage, helps people of all cultures to understand we have more in common than we are different. A graduate of IIM Bangalore, She is an Artist, an Associate Professor at the College of Business, Univ of Cincinnati, a founding partner of Artesiaa consulting and a tech nerd.
Ruma Neogy is a business analyst by profession, currently working at Acorda Therapeutics of Chelsea. She graduated in Civil Engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology in Dhaka, and then completed her Masters in Environmental Engineering from the University of Cincinnati. She worked for many years as an environmental engineer in major companies like The Shaw Group, Delta Environmental, URS Corporation and WSP before deciding to switch to business analysis in computing. Ruma is a co-founder of Calcutta Club USA and Indian Arts Boston., the current organizer of Caleidoscope Indian Film Festival of Boston.
Aseem Chhabra is a freelance writer in New York City and New Delhi. He is the author of two biographies – Shashi Kapoor: The Householder, the Star and Priyanka Chopra: The Incredible Journey of a Global Bollywood Star.
Aseem has been published in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Hindu, Mumbai Mirror, The Indian Express, First Post, Rediff.com, Newslaundry and Scroll.in. He has been a commentator on Indian cinema on NPR, CNN, BBC, CBC, Good Morning America and Reuters.
He is the festival director of the New York Indian Film Festival. He is the voice of Shadow Puppet #1 in director Nina Paley’s award-winning animation film, Sita Sings the Blues.
Aseem has an MS degree in Journalism from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and an MBA from Boston University.