Natasha Mendonca is a visual artist and filmmaker 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 won the Tiger award at The International Film Festival Rotterdam 2011, the Ken Burns award for best film at the Ann Arbor Film Festival 2011, a residency award at the International Contemporary Art Festival, SESC_VideoBrazil 2011 and the Best Film award at Experimenta, India 2011.
She is currently developing her first feature film, Ajeeb Aashiq // Strange Love about a transgender sex worker, Rani who meets a gender ambiguous rickshaw driver, Amal, on a muggy night in Bombay. The intimate space of the rickshaw paints a portrait of a city hanging in the balance, skewed by poverty and a class divide, uniting both characters in their pursuit of a new utopia.
Ajeeb Aashiq was awarded the Hubert Bals Fund 2011 and was selected to be part of Open Doors at the Locarno International Film Festival 2011.
