Welcome to June!

This month we want to celebrate the winners of our 2024 Didi Creative Fund! We had dozens and dozens of entries and were simply blown away by the amount of creative talent in our community.

Congratulations to our finalists, check out their work here!

We would also like to thank our generous donors this year: South Asian and Tamil Women’s Collective, Tamil Women Rising, Dr. Julia Sen, Amar Nijhawan, Ria Arora (South Asian Yard), and Kaplana Srinarayanadas. Thank you, this wouldn’t be possible without you!

Also for our Didis in Toronto, stay tuned for our first summer social at the end of the month. Details will be on Instagram!

Meet the Didi

All you film and television fans, this month’s Meet the Didi is for you. Nimisha Mukerji is a force. She is a director, producer and writer based in Toronto and most recently, has worked on series like Under The Bridge and Allegiance.

Tell us about your journey as a director, what made you pursue this career?

From an early age I was encouraged by my parents to read and watch international films. They immigrated to Canada from India before I was born and when I was growing up, I have vivid memories of watching the Mahabharata miniseries on VHS tapes. I would see the beautiful actors playing larger than life characters and all the colourful sets and marvellous costumes. I wanted to be part of that world, the stories were so rich and dramatic.

I only speak English, so I couldn't follow all the Hindi dialogue, but I learned to watch the performances closely and find my own way into each episode. From there I started writing short stories and then got into theatre in high school. While I enjoyed acting, I was always drawn to the bigger picture; how all the pieces came together in order to bring the play to life. That led to experimenting with video and finding my way to the acclaimed film production program at the University of British Columbia. I was fortunate that my parents believed in me from the start. They bought me my first camera and that's the biggest reason I'm a director today.

Give us a glimpse of those early days as a young director trying to land titles. What kept you motivated? 

It's a highly competitive industry and I knew that going in. When I started out as a freelancer I was doing multiple jobs. I worked as an office production assistant and on the weekend I would shoot wedding videos and edit them myself. I wrote shorts and would invest whatever money I was making back into myself by going out and shooting projects.

My breakout film, 65_RedRoses (which was selected by Oprah Winfrey for her Documentary Club on OWN) started as a passion project with my co-director Philip Lyall, who I met in film school. We needed to sell the idea to bigger production companies and broadcasters in order to get it financed, so we went out and shot a demo on our own. We later took out a low interest loan to continue shooting the film, hiring our own crew and deferring our own fees. It's no different than starting a small business. For the first six years I was living my work. From the start of the day until I went to sleep I was only thinking about films and how to get them made. It meant sacrificing a lot, I lived at home, I couldn't afford to go on vacations or buy new clothes or go out with friends. But I would ask myself every morning "Do you want to be the person who watches movies, or the person who makes them?"

Once I had a few critically acclaimed films under my belt I started getting hired as a director, first in factual entertainment and then in the scripted world. I started directing shows for Disney and Hallmark. That was a turning point for me creatively, since I was starting to direct for television, and it also brought with it a sense of financial stability. 

You've recently worked on two series with South Asian storylines, tell us about this experience?

Last year I directed on the Hulu series Under The Bridge which told the true story of Reena Virk. I also worked on the Canadian police procedural show Allegiance, which features a Sikh family living in Surrey. These experiences were incredible for me, not only because Indian story lines were front and centre, but also members of the key creative team were also women and BIPOC.

The creator of Allegiance is Anar Ali, and I directed one of the episodes she co-wrote for the season, which was just amazing since it was such a collaboration working with her and the lead actress Supinder Wraich. In many ways it felt like coming home, to be surrounded by these strong, brown women. Anar wrote such a smart, complicated and beautiful female character, and Supinder brought so much of herself to the role of Sabrina. We felt a sense of pride and responsibility representing the South Asian community. 

The story of Under The Bridge and Reena Virk has stayed with me since I was a teenager watching the news of her murder and the trial unfold in real time. The script was written by South Asian writer Stuti Malhotra, and gave a powerful sense of perspective since it was created as a standalone episode about Reena and her parents, as well as their stories of immigrating to Canada. It was difficult material, and it felt very personal directing this episode, both as a South Asian woman and as a mom. I could see the story through the eyes of Reena as well as the struggle of her parents to connect with her.

The cast was such a dream to work with, and I've loved Archie Panjabi since Bend It Like Beckham, and of course she's brilliant in The Good Wife. Her nuanced performance of Reena's mom is truly heartbreaking. Ezra Farouque Khan, who plays Manjit, cared so much about the details and is such a generous actor. And Vritika Gupta is the only person who could have played the part of Reena. At such a young age she possesses a tremendous amount of talent and maturity. She was such a joy to work with. 

Have you faced any barriers as a brown woman in the industry? If so, how did you work through them?

It's hard to see a future for yourself in an industry where there are so few people like you. It has only slowly started changing in the past few years, but I would often find that I would get dismissed by the decision makers or gatekeepers (often older, white men) who couldn't relate to the stories I was trying to tell.

I had to work harder and become smarter, more strategic with how I approached situations. Because so many of the producers and network executives I was meeting with were looking for a reason to say no to me as a BIPOC director, I had to come up with artful ways to counter them. A lot of this business is pitching, so I worked really hard to become a strong pitcher, and part of that was knowing who my audience was and trying to find those universal truths that they could connect with. I am grateful I had directors like Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and M. Night Shyamalan to look up to. These prolific filmmakers were getting their films made. So I knew it was possible, I just couldn't give up.

You have a wide genre range of titles under your belt, what type of show or film would you want to work on next?

I've loved being able to jump from romantic comedies to hard-hitting dramas, to sci-fi action shows. Lately, though, I have wanted more creative control and artistic freedom to explore stories closer to home. So I've created a series that highlights my own experiences as an Indo-Canadian, which I'm currently developing with my writing partner and co-creator Mark Ratzlaff, which is called New Country. 

I would love to direct the pilot and set the tone for the show, which is based around members of my family. I am also slated to work on my first narrative feature called See Jane Fight, which explores a mother-daughter relationship against the backdrop of MMA fighting. I'm excited to make a movie after working in television for the past five years. 

There are so many great Canadian South Asian directors like yourself telling all types of stories, especially as of late. What's your advice for anyone who wants to start? 

Directing is often about being the problem solver in the room, and also about practising your craft, so read great scripts, watch great television, shorts, commercials, music videos, independent films, and then break them down, learn from the masters. Wherever possible form genuine relationships with people in the industry at all levels, and find ways to be part of the community and give back. And while it's difficult, try not to compare yourself or your career to others. Every path is different.

What were reading:

The Globe and Mail: The power of gold: For many South Asian women, it’s much more than jewellery by Yumna Iftikhar

Fashion Magazine: TikTok, Stop Co-Opting South Asian Cultures by Katherine Singh

Refinery 29: The South Asian-Inspired Beauty Brand Bringing Joy Back Into Makeup by Karina Hoshikawa

What we’re watching / listening to:

Friday Things: There Actually Is Room for More than One Brown Girl at the Table (with our co-founder Arti Patel)

Check out our interview and subscribe to our new YouTube page!
In Flames with Ramesha Nawal and Bakhtawar Mazhar

— Arti Patel

Issue 73
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