Mustard Seed Film Festival is the first and only South Asian film festival in Philadelphia. Mustard Seed Film Festival screens contemporary, socially engaged films by South Asian directors that highlight marginalized voices and focus on themes salient to the South Asian citizen, immigrant and diasporic experience.
Mustard Seed seeks to increase access to South Asian films in the Philadelphia area and build community through storytelling and art. As a festival, we recognize that India is often centered as representative of South Asia and we seek to destabilize that focus by providing a wide variety of representation of other countries such as (but not limited to) Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the diaspora.
Films made by women, LGTBQ and non-binary directors will be given particular consideration, as well as films made by directors of indigenous, Dalit and refugee communities.
This year will include a special program on Indo-Caribbean identity. Films that explore this theme are strongly encouraged to apply.
Mustard Seed Film Festival does not award any prizes in line with our belief that each film selected is an invaluable addition to the festival. We do offer $100 honoraria for feature length films and provide additional honoraria for artists who can attend the festival.