Meet The Oddballs

Koval Bhatia

I have been working as a producer and filmmaker for nearly 12 years now: I started off as a freelancer and with time, I set up a production company in 2011 called A Little Anarky Films that makes digital films, music videos, short documentaries and broadcast episodes. In 2019, I joined Sarvnik Kaur, a close friend of mine from college, on a feature length documentary project as a producer. From getting grants from foundations like Sundance, IDFA, HotDocs, Catapult, SFFILM etc, to pitching at forums like Sheffield MeetMarket and HotDocs, my first feature project was a wonderful journey encouraged by incredible women from across the globe. I graduated from Eurodoc, a year-long training lab for documentary production in 2021, and was awarded the Emerging Producer’s Bursary by WCSFP ‘21 for my projects in Factual Entertainment. I am now producing a couple of feature length documentaries and excited to be working on my first film as a director. It would be so amazing to pay it forward, and share the knowledge I’ve been privileged with to support women in my field in any way I possibly can.

Poorva Dinesh

I was in my early 30’s when I realised I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker. With no education or experience in media, my learning came from the internet, watching documentaries, picking old books on the craft in quaint little bookstores of Bangalore and picking brains of countless people. Most didn’t take me seriously, but some did - and to them I am very grateful. Fast forward to now. I am an emerging documentary filmmaker and editor. I was part of Docedge Kolkata in 2021 and I am currently developing my feature doc at the DOC NYC X VC Storytelling Incubator, apart from working on a couple of other projects across the globe.

As I learn, fall, cry and celebrate while I navigate the territory of non-fiction as a filmmaker and editor, I can’t help but be excited about what a wonderful time this is for documentaries and I really hope Open Door Docs makes the journey of documentary filmmaking fun, meaningful and exciting for everyone.