Meet the Patels

Indian American filmmaker Geeta Patel is a writer and director of documentary and dramatic feature films. She was recently visiting atist in Belarus and Turkey, as one of 29 filmmakers chosen for a new U.S. State Department initiative in the arts. Currently, she is writer/director of a narrative martial arts feature entitled Mouse. Geeta is also director and cinematographer of the romantic comedy documentary film entitled One in a Billion (ITVS/CAAM/PRI), executive produced by Academy Award winner Geralyn Dreyfous (Born into Brothels). Geeta directed the Sundance/ITVS-funded documentary feature entitled Project Kashmir (PBS/2010), shot by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Ross Kauffman (Born into Brothels). She began her career as the youngest associate screenwriter in Hollywood. She has worked with Disney, Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, ABC, NBC, and Twentieth Century Fox, including The Fast and the Furious and Blue Crush. She is a filmmaking advisor for the Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), served on the nomination committee for the Rockefeller Foundation/Renew Media’s Media Art’s Fellowship as well as the International Documentary Association's DocuWeek and CAAM selection committees. She is a graduate in comparative area studies at Duke University.

Ravi Patel is most recognized as an actor for his work on Scrubs, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Transformers, Powder Blue, and the nearly 50 national commercials he's done in the last four years. He was in five feature films in 2008, in addition to a recurring role on CW's new drama Easy Money, from the producers of The Sopranos. He will be recurring on the Showtime show Look, which premiers in 2010. He is currently filming a new show for FOX entitled Past Life, which premiers in March after American Idol. As a comedian, Ravi has toured the country and performed regularly at The Improv and The Laugh Factory in Los Angeles. As a writer/director, Ravi recently sold a political feature he wrote and currently has a deal for a pilot he created. He has sold a number of web series that he wrote and produced. Prior to joining the entertainment industry four years ago, Ravi was a broker, investment banker, and later founded popular poker magazine All In, which was the most successful publishing entity in 2004 (from capitalization to profit). Ravi graduated from The University of North Carolina in Economics and International Studies in 2001.