"Sonali is quickly becoming a rising star in the world of independent films," said Joseph H. Seipel, dean of the VCU School of the Arts.

Filmmaker Sonali Gulati [Mount Holyoke class of 1996] can only guess at what her mother would have said about her being a lesbian and having a baby with her partner, Geeta Jhaveri.

Her mother, Sushma Gulati, died in 1997. Gulati, in her award-winning 2011 film "I Am," examines what it is like to be gay in India, where she was born, and to come out to parents in a country where until 2009 same-sex unions were a criminal offense.

As the film opens, Gulati wonders about the words she might have used to come out to her mother. Would she have said she wasn't interested in men, or would she have said, "I'm in love with a woman"?

The phrasing is important. Like the title of her film, the "I" statement implies that it is simply enough to be who one is.