Sonali Gulati is a Brown, caste-privileged, agnostic, queer, cis-woman, documentary filmmaker, activist, educator and first-generation Indian immigrant to Turtle Island. She is a Guggenheim fellow who has been making award-winning documentary and experimental films for over two decades that have screened at over 500 film festivals, and public & cable television worldwide.

Gulati was born and raised in New Delhi by a single mother who believed that good girls studied hard, kept long hair, and found nice Indian husbands through penpalship. Sonali studied hard, got admission at Mount Holyoke College, majored in Critical Social Thought, graduated in 3 years, shaved her head, and came out as lesbian. You can follow her on Instagram @sonalifilm.

Sonali and Saira discuss the role of Hollywood and Bollywood in creating and distributing propaganda worldwide, plus the connections between so many tragedies in our world and the rich and powerful.

In this episode, Saira also announces that this podcast will be pausing new episodes after the decision by producer Heath Racela to step back from his role. Heath has been producing podcasts and sharing his writing for more than five years and he has decided he needs some space to process grief at the state of our world.

You can read more about Heath’s decision to take an extended break on his recent Substack post.

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