Director: Bikas Ranjan Mishra

Biography: Award winning writer-director Bikas Mishra's debut feature "Chauranga" (released on January 8, 2016) won Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles and was declared Best Indian Feature at Mumbai Film Festival (MAMI). The screenplay of the film was developed at NFDC Screenwriters' Lab in collaboration with Locarno Film Festival and ScriptStation of Berlin Talents. It received a development grant from the Göteborg International Film Festival, Sweden. Bikas, a fellow of Binger FilmLab, Amsterdam, has also received prestigious Hubert Bals Fund for script development from the International Film Festival Rotterdam. His short film "Naach Ganesh" (Dance of Ganesha) widely travelled to prestigious festivals including Clermont Ferrand (France), Rotterdam (The Netherlands), Busan (South Korea) and IFFLA (Los Angeles). He holds, a masters degree in Mass Communication, from Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia, New Delhi. Prior to his filmmaking career, Bikas worked as a special Features show producer for CNBC with Network18. Bikas has served on the selection committees of Mumbai Film Festival and has been invited on the critic's juries of International Film Festival of Kerala and Osian's Cinefan Film Festival, New Delhi. In 2012, he was invited on the Visionary Jury of Critics Week of the Cannes Film Festival.