In this newsletter, read about:



  1. Pride Month Special - Tasveer Open Mic
  2. Tasveer Film Fund Submissions
  3. Welcome New Board Members and Staff
  4. Tasveer Youth Collective Board Kicks off
  5. TSAFF Submission Call
  6. Gender 101, How to be an Ally
  7. Become a Judge / Mentor for TFF

Pride Month Special Tasveer Open Mic is Tomorrow

Tasveer is excited to partner with Satrang and Pride Foundation to celebrate pride month!


Join us tomorrow to celebrate all-queer stories, at Tasveer Open Mic Night with Rohini as the emcee! Tasveer strives to create a safe community space for sharing and supporting stories and art. Tasveer invites you to showcase your musings, rousings, yearnings, instruments, poems, skits, comic pieces, plays or whatever talent you want to bring to us.


June 23, 6 PM PST

Register/ Attend

Tasveer Film Fund Submissions Are Open!

Submissions are currently open! Please read the rules & terms as they are different for each category.


🎥 Short Narrative: $10,000 max (US only)

🎥 Short Narrative LGBTQI+: $10,000 max (US only)

🎥 Documentary: $15,000 max (US only)

🎥 Feature Narrative:$15,000 max (Global)


We will host a live pitching session to determine the award winners in each category. The top 3 finalists will be invited from each category to pitch their short film, LGBTQ+ films, or their documentary treatment.


Submit By: Thursday. September 15th, 2022

Pitch Day: October 13th-14th, 2022 (Thur, Fri)

Submit Here

Welcome New Board Members!

Tasveer welcomes Sunil Shinde, Bidisha Biwas, Divya Kakkad, and Shailaja Rao to serve on the Tasveer Board! They will play an important role in fulfilling our mission to better represent the still underrepresented yet quickly growing South Asian community.  


Sunil ShindeSunil has been an ardent Urban Sketcher since 2013 and is a correspondent for urbansketchers.org. Over the last twenty years, Sunil has traveled to over thirty countries, tracing stories of history, religion, and culture.


Bidisha BiswasBidisha is a political scientist with her work published in several outlets, including  Washington PostForeign Policy, The Print, and Scroll. For the past 15 years, she has researched, spoken, and written extensively about international relations and diaspora and immigration politics.


Divya Kakkad Divya is the GM of Platform at Graham & Walker, a venture capital firm with a mission to reshape the NASDAQ with more women-founded tech companies. She is a seasoned Marketing and Brand strategist specializing in technology with deep expertise in startups & entrepreneurship


Shailaja Rao - Shailaja worked as a software developer at Old Dominion for 23 years and retired in March 2022. Now she is an active member of many international diaspora organizations that promote upholding democratic and secular values in South Asia.

More about Tasveer Board

Tasveer Welcomes New Staff Members

Jamal Siddiqui

Maliha Masmood

Kenta Despe


Read more about them

We are excited to report that the Tasveer Youth Board had its first meeting recently! Tasveer is looking for additional members, please apply if you are interested. 


TYB Member Benefits:

  • Fulfilling Community Service Hours at School
  • Gaining Leadership Experience for College Applications
  • Mentoring Opportunities with Local Artists
  • Free Access to Tasveer Events and Workshops 
Apply for TYB

TSAFF 2022: Submission Call

Inviting South Asian Filmmakers to submit their films to the 17th annual Tasveer South Asian Film Festival #TSAFF2022 that will be held from November 4th to 13th, 2022.


Categories for film submissions:


🍿 Feature films - fiction & non-fiction

🍿 Short films - fiction & non-fiction

🍿 Music videos

🍿 Episodic - web series

🍿 Digital/Web Content - YouTube, Instagram, TikToks, and more

🍿 VR/Interactive - Virtual Reality films, interactive videos, video games, and more

Submit Film

Tonight: Gender 101, How to Be An Ally

Don't miss out on this exciting interactive presentation happening tonight! Join the discussion with Anuradha Gupta, of PFLAG Danville-San Ramon and Himadri Gupta of South Asian SOAR!


LGBTQ+ issues in the South Asian community and in all communities are so stigmatized and often invisible. We hope this conversation will offer a safe space of celebration, learning, and reflection for all 🌈.


The event is today at 6:30pm PST!

Register here

VOLUNTEER WITH TASVEER!

Tasveer is looking for volunteers for its upcoming 17th Tasveer South Asian Film Festival! We need volunteers to help us with guest liaising, event planning, festival promotion, and more.


Whether you have a few hours or a whole day to spare, you can support Tasveer in making a difference! Volunteering is also a great way to meet like-minded people and become a part of the progressive South Asian community interested in films, literature, arts and storytelling. If you are interested, please follow the link in below or email us at volunteer@tasveer.org!

Become a Volunteer

Interested in being a mentor/judge for Tasveer Film Fund?


Tasveer is looking for judges and mentors for young South Asian filmmakers who apply for Tasveer Film Fund! (Spots are limited and unfortunately we cannot select everyone who applies).

Apply Here

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