Residency VILA SUL

The interdisciplinary singer, songwriter, and performer douniah captivates audiences with her genre-defying music and compelling stage presence, performing in venues from Berlin to London. Since the release of her album Dream Baby (2019), she has appeared as a supporting act for Children of Zeus, Sudan Archives, Rochelle Jordan, and Bilal. In 2024, she performed at the XJAZZ and Pop-Kultur festival, as well as at London’s Jazz Café and the Le Guess Who? Festival.

Her solo debut A Lot, Not Too Much (2023) brings together her multilingual storytelling in German, Darija, and English, blending spoken word poetry with jazz, soul, and R&B. Produced by Dhanya Langer, the project combines free-flowing poetry with meticulously crafted arrangements. Through her fluid sound, poetic lyrics, and authenticity, douniah creates deeply immersive musical experiences. She continually evolves her sonic narrative, inviting listeners to pause, reflect, and lose themselves in the echoes of her music.

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Pooja Dhingra's practice moves between participative design, comics and graphic storytelling, embroidery, textiles, and socially engaged art. She is drawn to the quiet, everyday stories of resilience and resistance- especially those that are often overlooked or erased.
She is the founder of Compassion Contagion, an online archive that documents the everday acts and stories of resilience of ordinary people through art in an attempt to to shift the narrative from despair to that of hope. She is also the founder of Rafooghar – the house that mends, a community space for marginalized women in New Delhi, India where the mediums of embroidery and textiles are used as tools for emotional repair, rest, rejuvenation and resistance. She is interested in reclaiming embroidery as a feminist and political tool by bringing it out of the confines of the domestic sphere, out of its reputation as ‘women’s hobby’ into public sphere to demonstrate its power for self-expression, therapy, building agency and interfaith friendships as well as for democratic dissent, social change and advocacy.
As a graphic designer, she has worked on visual campaigns that address systemic discrimination, early and child marriage, women’s health, nutrition, and the reproductive rights of adolescent girls. Her work is research-driven and focuses on making complex ideas accessible, especially to audiences that are often excluded from mainstream conversations.
She sees humor, satire, rest and and play as vital tools for storytelling and social critique. She likes to create community gatherings, stitching circles, interfaith potlucks, and secret dance parties- small, joyful disruptions into neighborhoods that are often denied access to beauty and fun, especially women who are routinely denied the right to leisure and pleasure. In a divisive political climate where civic spaces are shrinking, she see these gatherings as tiny pockets of freedom, friendship, and solidarity.

My name is Reena Moktan. I have been writing film reviews, in-depth reports and analytical articles related to cinema in Nepal’s national daily Kantipur for the past 7 years. I have been selected as a Berlinale Talent 2026 at the Berlin International Film Festival for the first time, in Talent Press, from Nepal.

Along with film journalism, I also write research-based articles on theatre and music, and I am among the few women critics who lead public discussions on cinema in Nepal. I currently serve as the Women Vice President of Film Critics Society of Nepal (FICSON), an organization of film critics. Through this platform, I’mworking collectively to build a stronger film-watching culture and to improve the quality of Nepali cinema through the expansion of criticism.

It has been 9 years since I started my career in film journalism. I’ver emained actively engaged in this field, and was also invited as a press delegate to the 75th Berlin International Film Festival. This was my first encounter withthe world cinema, international journalists, critics, and global platforms. I got the chance to witness, learn, and network and bring those learning’s back to Nepal.

I deeply believe that cinema has the power to change thoughts, shape perspectives, and ultimately transform society. That’s why I consider film criticism the most important part of journalism. But still film criticism is not considered as serious in Nepali journalism. Though our film industry is small, Nepali films have started making their solid presence in prestigious global festivals like Cannes, Venice, and Berlin. As someone actively involved in this field, I understand the importance of criticism in shaping both the films and the industry.
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Vedant Srinivas is a film curator, researcher, and writer, with a particular interest in creative non-fiction and experimental moving-image practices. His work spans writing, curatorial projects, and festival programming, exploring the intersections between moving image and vernacular culture, with a focus on South Asia. His interdisciplinary practice is informed by his background in philosophy, cinema, and art history, alongside a sustained engagement with cultural anthropology. He has co-programmed the international section of two editions of the International Film Festival of India, India’s oldest international film festival. He is also a student of Indian classical music (Carnatic mandolin).

His film writing has appeared in Senses of Cinema, MUBI Notebook, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Cineaste, Variety, Sabzian, Ultra Dogme, Photogénie, and FIPRESCI-India, among others. He has also contributed to academic journals including Journal of Posthuman Studies, Comparative and Continental Philosophy, Visual Anthropology Review, Postcolonial Studies, and Critical Inquiry.

Vedant is an alumnus of the Locarno Critics Academy, Oberhausen Seminar, Berlinale Talents, Emerging Curators Lab, Arthshila Visual Arts Writing Residency, the ARCUREA moving-image curation workshop (Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute), and the Young Critics Workshop (Film Fest Ghent).
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