Curators
Founder and Artistic Director, Sadir Theatre Festival
Swati Bhise, founder and CEO of Cayenne Pepper Productions, most recently finished directing, writing, and producing a period drama film, The Warrior Queen of Jhansi, based on the life of the iconic Rani of Jhansi. The film released in the fall of 2019 in theatres across America, India, and Canada, and is slated for a global release in 2020. The film was the first Hollywood action film in history with a female Indian lead, and received the Film of Impact Award at the Vancouver International Women in Film Festival and the prestigious ReFrame Stamp for gender parity in film.
A Bharatanatyam dancer, Bhise is the first disciple of Padma Vibhushan Sonal Mansingh and has performed extensively around the world at venues including Lincoln Center, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Asia Society, NCPA (India), The United Nations General Assembly, and many more.
She has been an ambassador of Indian culture in America for decades, an active advocate of women's empowerment through Asia Foundation’s Lotus Circle advisory board in New York, and founded Sanskriti, a non-profit organisation that promotes Indian arts and education in America.
In 2012, she founded The Sadir Theater Festival, a three-day festival focused on thought-provoking content that takes place annually in Goa. Bhise brought the UNESCO heritage art form of KunQu opera to India for the first time with performances at The National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai, and at Siri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi.
With a stellar career over the last 30 years in the creative arts spanning across Indian classical arts, media talk shows, arts in education, women’s empowerment, choreography, and film production, she has been a constant voice in advocating women’s rights and empowerment issues.
JUDY CALEB
Cultural Coordinator
Having graduated with a Masters in History from Mumbai University, Judy began her career in Kuwait working for John Al Kuwait, Burgan Bank, and Alghanim Industries for 20 years, after which she relocated to Delhi and Goa. Over ten years ago In 2008, Judy joined Bravia Capital as an Executive Assistant.
In 2012, when Sadir Theatre Festival was conceptualised and started in Goa, she took the role of Cultural Coordinator and has since been associated with it annually.
Along with being the Cultural Coordinator of the festival, she is also holding the portfolio of an Executive Associate Producer at Cayenne Pepper Productions for the film The Warrior Queen of Jhansi, based on the life of the iconic Rani of Jhansi.
Since 2014 she has been working closely with Swati Bhise on all projects. She coordinates and handles all proposals including marketing.