Gotham Chopra in Person. Spiritual icon Deepak Chopra is the focus of this doc, an audience favorite at the SXSW Film Festival. Made by Gotham Chopra, it separates the man from the myth with a raw honesty only a son can have. But what starts as decoding quickly becomes an allegory of a world trying to make sense of itself.

Delicately crafted, both in story and visual style, this beautiful, emotional tale explores the unusual alliance between an elderly Indian woman (with a irrational fear of Africans) and a South African orphan in post-Apartheid South Africa. Based on Luthra’s earlier short, which won over 40 international awards including an Oscar nomination.

Pahuja goes behind-the-scenes at the Miss India Pageant and the Hindu fundamentalist movement to capture the tension between traditional and modern perspectives toward women in today’s India. A timely expose on the fundamental contradictions of a country in transition.

This striking film by first-time director Gurvinder Singh uses exquisite cinematography and an unusual cast of characters to portray a day in the life of a rural Punjabi family facing the demolition of their village. A worthy tribute to the legend of Indian cinema, the late Mani Kaul, who was executive producer on the film.

Four startling shorts: a desperate daughter makes a deal with the devil in the chilling Another Planet; a nun and her daughter struggle to escape the memories of civil war in the unsettling I Too Have A Name; a young girl negotiates sisterhood and womanhood in the moving Kaveri; a young mother is forced to play soldier in the post-apocalyptic and parched Boond (Drop).

Amit Ashraf in Person. Amit Ashraf’s dynamic script and creative visual vocabulary confirm that something is afoot in Bangladeshi cinema. The gritty, urban streets of Dhaka provide the backdrop for this noirish thriller about men who run away from family responsibility, and a rickshawallah who is compelled to bring them to justice.

Set to a pounding soundtrack of hip-hop and electronica, this gritty thriller follows the members of a girl gang intent on exacting revenge on abusive men in their East London housing estate. Bhogal’s inventive take on British genre cinema won him a place on the London Film Festival’s Best Newcomer list.

Filmmakers in Person. 3rd i’s shorts program goes coast-to-coast this year, with a kaleidoscope of short films from California and New York. Come to 3rd i’s Desi Dance Party later in the evening (10PM, Location TBA) and catch many of the filmmakers up close and personal!

Jon Shenk in Person. An inspiring, pictorially dazzling documentary from one of the Bay Area’s most exciting filmmakers! As rising sea levels threaten the existence of the Maldives, President Mohammed Nasheed fights for the survival of his country. People’s Choice Doc Award, Toronto Film Festival 2011