Nisha Ganatra is a Canadian-American film director, screenwriter, producer, and actress of Indian descent. She received a Golden Globe award in 2015 for her work as a director and producer in the television seriesTransparent. She is best known for her films Chutney Popcorn and Cosmopolitan, and for being a consulting producer on, and directing three episodes of the first season of the television series Transparent. Ganatra graduated from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.
Early life and education
Ganatra explored her interest in film through acting and then decided to make the switch to pursue film-making as she wanted to effect cultural change. Ganatra began her film-making journey by studying at The University of California, Los Angeles. Though she wasn't studying film, she explored her interest by sneaking into screenwriting classes which eventually led her to creating short films. She moved to New York City to pursue a film degree at New York University Film School. During her time there, she created a short filmJunky Punky Girlz which won NYU's Tisch Fellowship and most outstanding short film from PBS.
Career
While in film school, Ganatra directed several episodes of MTV's long-running television series The Real Worldin 2001. Prior to this she had written and directed two shorts and her critically acclaimed independent film Chutney Popcorn. Ganatra is part of a mentorship program with NBC which seeks to provide talented female directors with the same opportunities as their male counterparts. This program selects female directors to be given the opportunity to shadow up to three episodes of an NBC series. The participants will then be able to direct at least one episode of the series in which she has been shadowing. When Ganatra was on the hunt for a cinematographer, she began to notice that the men's reels were far superior compared to the women's reels. As a female director herself, she was accustomed to being overlooked in the hiring process in favor of men. She realized that the men had better reels not because they were more talented, but instead, because they had been given bigger budgets, better equipment, larger crews, and elaborate productions. All of these elements allowed the men's work to be far superior, which motivated Ganatra to hire a female cinematographer and strive to hire female crews.
