After a highly competitive selection process we are delighted to announce the 9 projects and filmmakers selected for the first Kathmandu Doc Lab.

Alvina Joshi & Rahul Rabha | India

When his village is marked for demolition, an unemployed artist must surrender both his ancestral home and iron grip on his family, or lose the very connections he desperately fights to preserve.

Omkar Khandagale | India

Realizing all that is left of his great-grandfather are the tools of his trade; a filmmaker sets out for his hometown hoping to make sense of his family and their inheritance

Sumair Shamsi | Pakistan

A Christian sewer worker in Lahore, battles systemic discrimination to secure a better future for his children, while navigating societal barriers, family sacrifices, and religious tensions in Pakistan.

Mahera Omar | Pakistan

A fisherwoman from Karachi collects firewood from the city’s mangrove forest. A boatman’s engine sputters black fumes on Lahore’s river Ravi. In the skies, a toxic haze hovers, shortening lifespans.

Gia Singh Arora | India

In Mumbai, Suruj—a non-binary drag queen from Assam—mothers a chosen queer family. As drag fades and her father’s voice returns, she questions if kinship alone can anchor belonging.

Ahsabul Yamin | Bangladesh

On the deadliest flood night in recent Bangladeshi history, a young mother gives birth aboard a boat in the submerged village of Northeastern Bangladesh. As she fights to raise her son amidst rising waters, failing systems, and vanishing land, their story becomes a portrait of life at the frontline of climate change.

Sonam Yangzom | Bhutan

In the remote highlands of Bhutan, a teenage girl is torn between the allure of modern life and her grandmother’s desperate plea to preserve their dying tradition of yak herding.

Bunu Dhungana | Nepal

Gaura Prasai attempts to reconnect with her friend Sita to revisit their 1971’s armed rebellion against landlords in eastern Nepal and fight the political erasure of women’s participation.

Nuruzzaman Khan | Bangladesh/Lithuania

A Bangladeshi man confronts the challenges of identity, fatherhood, and bureaucracy in Lithuania — a country ranked happiest for youth, yet haunted by one of Europe’s highest suicide rates.

Anam Abbas

Anam Abbas is an award-winning filmmaker, director of “This Stained Dawn” (Sheffield, Yamagata, 2021) and producer behind “Showgirls of Pakistan” (IDFA, 2020) and “In Flames” (Cannes, TIFF, Busan, Sitges). Anam has served on the selection jury for Berlinale Talents Doc Station, Sheffield Meet Market. She is a founding member of the Documentary Association of Pakistan, programming the Chalta Phirta Film Festival, and runs intensive Doc Labs in Pakistan.

Arun Bhattarai

Arun Bhattarai is a Bhutanese documentary filmmaker known for acclaimed works like, “Agent of Happiness, “The Next Guardian”, and Mountain Man”. His latest, Agent of Happiness debuted at The Sundance Film Festival, where it was a grand jury prize nominee. His films have been awarded at major festivals and theatrically released around the world. Bhattarai specializes in intimate, culturally nuanced storytelling. His films have been supported by Sundance, Catapult and IDFA Bertha Fund.

Rintu Thomas

Rintu Thomas is an Academy Award-nominated, Peabody-winning Indian filmmaker whose body of work sits at the intersection of storytelling as an art and a dialogue. Her double Sundance-winning ‘Writing With Fire’ (2021) is India’s first Oscar-nominated feature documentary. Rintu is a recipient of the IDA Courage Under Fire Award, the President’s Medal in India and a co-founder of Black Ticket Films. Her critically acclaimed work is centered on creating powerful, socially engaged documentaries that amplify underrepresented voices.

Jane Mote

As Consultant Editor at The Whickers fund, Jane Mote works with emerging documentary filmmakers who tell compelling stories about our world. She has guided filmmakers at numerous Asian forums including Docs by the Sea in Bali, MyDocs Malaysia, Dhaka DocLab and Docedge Kolktata . Her experience extends to documentary training programs at the British Film Institute in London and workshops in Africa, Iceland and the UK.

Nilotpal Majumdar

Nilotpal Majumdar has worn many hats in his journey through documentary filmmaking – from directing award-winning films to mentoring emerging talents across Asia. A graduate of FTII Pune, he founded DocEdge Kolkata and has served as Dean at Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute and headed the Manipur State Film and Television Institute. His work in nurturing new voices has taken him to numerous labs and workshops across South Asia, including DMZ Doc Funds, Dhaka DocLab, and Korean Pitch for IDFA.