Panel discussion after screening “I AM” by Sonali Gulati

Moderator/Panelist Bio:

1. Soniya Munshi (Moderator) is a doctoral student in Sociology and Women’s Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Soniya’s dissertation research looks at state, medical institutional, and community-based responses to domestic violence in South Asian immigrant communities in New York City, primarily during the post-9/11 “War on Terror,” to interrogate relationships between race, gender/sexuality, migration, health, national/domestic security, and prison/policing. Her work centralizes possibilities for transformational justice that transcend state-driven responses to community violence. Soniya’s academic work is informed by over 15 years of experience with anti-domestic violence efforts as well as her participation in immigrant rights and queer/trans justice organizing work in people of color communities. She is a former Manavi staff member.
2. Aneesa Sen (Panelist) currently serves as the Support Chair for the SALGA-NYC, Inc., where she creates and implements support strategies (support group and hotline) for the South Asian LGBTQ community in the tri-state region and beyond. She is Administrator at ALIGN: Alliance for a Greater New York, managing office systems, human resources and finances. Aneesa has more than fifteen years of experience working with nonprofit and academic institutions, in the areas of project management, administration, technology, communications, teaching, translation and conflict resolution.
3. Aiyaaz Ehmad (Panelist) has lived in Pakistan, South Africa and USA and has been actively involved in LGBT issues in NYC. He also served on the Steering Committee of South Asian Lesbian and Gay Organization 2002-2004.
4. Ashoke Vishwanathan (Panelist) http://www.ashokeviswanathan.com/home.html
   Ashoke Viswanathan ,a mathematics graduate from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, is a post graduate in film direction from the Film and Television Institute of India (Pune), having finished his specialization in 1985. Subsequently, he completed a certificate course in video production from the same institute in 1986. Since then, he has been active in both film and video media as a director, screenplay writer, actor and presenter, having directed more than 150 films and television programmes including feature films, documentaries, telefilms, music videos, and teleserials. He has won two National Awards and one International Award. Three of his feature films and one of his short features have been included in the INDIAN PANORAMA sections of IFFI ‘94, 1999, 2001, 2002. His films have been shown at the Commonwealth Film Festival, Manchester, the Pyongyang International Film Festival, the Dhaka International Film Festival, and the Ipswich Film Festival, among others. Viswanathan has represented India at the Cambridge Seminar on contemporary British writing, held at Downing College, Cambridge (1997). He has also been an Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of Direction at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute and a Visiting Professor at Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, at the Dept. of Cinema and Theatre, Tufts University, Boston, Dept. of Film Studies, Jadavpur University, and Dept. of Film Studies, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. He has presented papers and illustrated lectures at Monmouth University, New Jersey, Tisch School of Arts, New York University, and at Downing College, Cambridge.