Event

Contemporary Transnational Cinema Speakers Series presents

Natasha Mendonca

Natasha Mendonca is a visual artist from Bombay, India. She holds a B.A from St. Xavier's College, Bombay in Sociology and Anthropology and a Masters in Film and Video from the California Institute of the Arts.

In 2003, she overcame India’s tough censorship laws around homosexuality and co-founded Larzish, the nation’s first international film and video film festival on sexuality and gender based in Bombay, India. Larzish’s success opened the floodgates for other Indian cities to hold their own queer film festivals. Since then she has also programmed for other festivals including the Berlin Lesbian Film festival and Queer Zagreb, Croatia. She was a jury member of the Teddy Jury, Berlin International Film Festival in 2004.

Her recent work Jan Villa, which is an experimental short film premiered at the Vienna International film festival 2010 and won the Tiger award at The International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011. It also won the Ken Burns award for the Best of the festival at the Ann Arbor Film Festival 2011.