DIDIHOOD ~ Issue 32

Happy October Didis! 

It's hard to believe we're in the last quarter of the year, likely because we've spent much of 2020 staying home and staying safe. Though the pandemic required us all to pivot our plans and reimagine our programming, it has been incredible to see our 2020 Mentorship Program operating successfully in a digital format. Keep sending us your pics and notes about connecting with your mentor and mentee, we love seeing them! 

This past month, co-founder Roohi Sahajpal also published a piece in Vancouver-based magazine Basenotes about working as a brown woman in media and the journey to creating Didihood. The piece is called, At Our Table, South Asian Women Get Every Seat. Read it here. 

Meet the Didi:
This month we chat with Agam Darshi, an actor, writer, director and producer. Agam recently played the role of Mia Franklin in Ava Duvernay's pilot DMZ, as well as a lead role in Deepa Mehta's newest film Funny Boy. She is now preparing for her feature film directorial debut with the support of Telefilm Canada. 

When did you decide to pursue a career in the film industry?
It was never really a pursuit, I just kind of fell into the industry. I had an old acting teacher who told me to find an agent in Vancouver when I moved there. I just wanted to make some extra money doing commercials. But my heart was in photography and theatre at the time. Long story short, I booked my first audition which was a recurring role in a series that was shot in Saskatchewan, and I was hooked. I loved the process, I loved the people, I had so much fun. So that was the start of it, and that was about 17 years ago! 

You've been acting for more than 15 years, what are some of your favourite roles?
That's a hard question. I feel like roles come to you to teach you something. As an actor, you're a vessel. And sometimes the very things you are searching for in your life, or looking to find in yourself come in the form of roles. It's magical. So I have had a lot of roles that have taught me a lot of things.
I recently worked in Sri Lanka with Deepa Mehta in her new film Funny Boy, based on the bestselling novel by Shyam Selvadurai. It's about a young gay boy who grows up in Sri Lanka during the civil war. I played the role of Radha. It was the most fulfilling experience as an actor I have had. Radha is a fun-loving aunt who accepts her nephew for who he is and teaches him to do the same. She stands for love, bravery, kindness. I loved playing her. She's very much the best parts of me. And the experience of shooting with Deepa who I have admired for so long, in Sri Lanka, was a dream come true. 
I also wrote a one-woman show a few years ago and performed it. It's entitled Burning Point. I played 15 characters, over a period of 75 minutes. It was so fulfilling and satisfying. I performed the show for six months after my twin boys were born. It was life changing because I was personally going through so much change but I also saw myself, my strength and creativity in a new light as well. 

What are some of the obstacles you encountered when trying to break into the film industry?
I think the biggest obstacle has been my own belief in myself. If you believe in yourself, then it doesn't matter what anyone says or what roles you get or don't get, you know you're on the right path. But I think my belief in myself has wavered over the years, and as such so has my commitment to this path as an actor. I've wanted to quit many times. And maybe finding my belief in myself and knowing that I'm on the right journey is part of what this path has taught me: to keep true to my dreams and who I am, and that eventually they will come to fruition. 
I've also had to find a real love for the process — for the auditions, for the times I'm not working, for the times I am working, for the wins and the rejection. You literally have to find a place of gratitude in every corner. I guess being a woman of colour might be viewed as an obstacle, but I choose not to see it that way. I've been able to build up an impressive resume because of it. I think it can be tricky when you're wanting to be a lead in a show — there's not a lot of them written for women of colour. But it pushes you to be better. To make sure that no one has an excuse not to hire you. 

You recently received Telefilm Canada funding for your first feature film; what can you tell us about that project? 
This is a BIG dream of mine, and I'm honoured that I'm in this position. I wrote a film called Indians in Cowtown (AKA The Making of Mona) a number of years ago. It's been a long road but we got funding recently and we are heading to camera January 2021 in Regina, Sask. and Calgary, Alta. It's about a woman named Mona, a messy struggling writer, who gives up seven years of her life to care for her ailing father. When his health takes a turn for the worst, her three very successful siblings come home to face the situation. It's a story of family, forgiving yourself and the people you love, and moving on with your life. I have a great team. My directing mentor is my dear friend Robert Cuffley who is an incredible and knowledgeable director, and has been such an asset in this process as I shift gears from actor to filmmaker. My producers are the guys at Karma Films, Anand Ramaaya and Kelly Balon, who have believed wholeheartedly in this project and me. And I'm so excited to say that Deepa Mehta is my executive producer. 

In your career, you've worked with iconic directors such as Ava Duvernay and Deepa Mehta, what was that experience like?
There is a reason why Ava and Deepa are revered so much. They have a lot in common. They're powerful women who are committed to the projects they make and won't take no for an answer. I feel so blessed that I had the chance to work with both of them, literally four months apart. I think as women of colour, they have had to outsmart, out-create, out-charm everyone else to get their films made. They're both charming, so intelligent and so creative. It gave me such joy and ammunition to have worked with them as I am entering my own phase as a filmmaker. I am beyond grateful that I have these women to look up to. 

You co-founded the Vancouver International South Asian Film Festival (VISAFF); what inspired you to take on this project? 
Growing up, I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I was too white, or too brown. It wasn't until I went to India for the first time, where I discovered there was no 'right' way to being Indian. There's hundreds of languages, cultures, types of people. I came back to Vancouver feeling like I had made all the right choices for myself. I had cherry picked my life to be as Canadian and as Indian as I wanted it to be and that was OK. So out of that, VISAFF was born. I wanted to create a space where we celebrated what Indian was, but also bridged the gap between South Asian creatives and mainstream audiences, to illustrate that we're more alike than we think. This is my mandate in all of my work: To create more space for diverse voices by celebrating diversity but more importantly, to blur the lines between what we believe is 'us' and 'them.' 

What advice do you have for younger Didis hoping to break into film and television? 
I love this question. We are all Didis. We are all sisters. So we must support each other. We must connect. We must not compete with each other. Which is tricky in an industry that pegs us against each other. But if there is one thing that I have learned, it's that this creative path, and more importantly, this life is an individual journey. We meet so many people, and for a moment it might feel like we're competing, but a year, five years, 10 years later you'll find yourself on a different path, and that person you were in competition with is nowhere to be seen. The only person you are competing against is yourself. 
That being said, go out there and create. Make yourself heard! Make yourself seen! Not out of ego, but because you have an interesting viewpoint and you, as a woman of colour, deserve to be seen and heard. Read more. Learn more. So that you actually have something of value to offer. Create space for yourself and others. And get to know yourself so you can champion yourself when the path feels bleak and lonely. Because those times will come, and when they do the only person you can lean on is yourself. 

What we're reading: 
The 2020 Toronto Book Awards released its long list of nominated authors for this year's award which will be announced on Nov. 30. The list includes three Didis: Vivek Shraya for her book The Subtweet, Samra Habib for her book We Have Always Been Here, and Joshna Maharaj for her book Take Back The Tray. 

Markham teen Iman Vellani has been cast to play the first Muslim superhero in the Marvel universe. Ms. Marvel is a new TV series that will air on Disney Plus and Vellani will play the character Kamala Khan. 

— Nikkjit Gill 

Issue 32
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