Directing Awareness: Filmmaker Meena Nanji

Today’s Hollywood landscape is littered with female South Asian filmmakers. Directors such as Gurinder Chadha and Mira Nair are enjoying an unprecedented amount of celebrated success, bringing Bollywood glitz and South Asian themes to the silver screen. But Meena Nanji shies away from all of that. Instead, this documentary filmmaker’s work includes films such as View from a Grain of Sand, a documentary detailing the lives of three Afghani women whose lives were violently affected by war, and Living in Colour, a glimpse into the lives of young second-generation Indian Americans. Her work has been described as concerning “the global diaspora of post-colonial peoples and the disruption and replacement of cultural values, traditions and ideologies that result from these migrations.” It’s clear that Nanji, who is driven by her passion for social justice, filters her view of the world through the lens of her camera.

It was obvious to me at a very young age that basically all people are the same, and that racism is just a very negative and irrational fear of difference that is very destructive for the people it’s directed at, whether on an institutional or personal level.

So it’s hardly surprising that Nanji denies any desire to become part of the Hollywood scene. “In my early 20s I worked at a record company and then as a production assistant at a small film company for a while, I and couldn’t believe the sexism! I couldn’t buy a record or go to see movies for a long time after that,” she says. A later stab at commercial film finally convinced her that the hedonistic lifestyle was not for her. “I worked on music videos and commercials for about a minute but was so appalled by the amount of waste involved-all the set building, the props, costumes-for every single ad and video. All of it is trashed after being used for two days! Whole villages in India could use the stuff that is trashed after one commercial and thrive on it for quite a while. So that was really appalling to me and I realized that I couldn’t be a part of it.”

The rise of a filmmaker

Complete interview at the source: Nirali Magazine.

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