Deepa Mehta is a renowned transnational artist, screenwriter, director, and producer, celebrated for her courageous, provocative, and breathtaking films that have captivated audiences worldwide. Born in India, Mehta received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi before immigrating to Canada, where she began her career making documentaries in India.
Mehta's feature film debut, Sam & Me, won a Special Jury Mention at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991, and she went on to direct two episodes of The Young Indiana Jones, a production by George Lucas for ABC, between 1992-1994. Her second feature film, Camilla, a Canada-UK co-production starring Jessica Tandy and Graham Greene, premiered in 1993.
The first film in Mehta's Elemental Trilogy, Fire, premiered at the 1996 Toronto International Film Festival and won numerous awards worldwide, including the Audience Award for Best Canadian Film at the Vancouver International Festival. The trilogy continued with Earth, based on Bapsi Sidhwa's acclaimed novel Cracking India, which premiered at the 1998 Toronto International Film Festival and won several awards.
Mehta's subsequent films, including Bollywood/Hollywood, a lighthearted comedy about two mismatched lovers, and The Republic of Love, based on a Carol Shields novel, further solidified her reputation as a masterful storyteller. Her final film in the Elemental Trilogy, Water, a powerful and hauntingly tragic story about a child widow, premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and was a critical and commercial success, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Mehta's later works include the documentary Let's Talk About It, which explores domestic violence in Toronto's immigrant families, and the feature film Heaven On Earth, which explores arranged marriages and isolation. Her epic cinematic adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel Midnight's Children, a sweeping epic that spans five decades of Indian history, premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and won several awards, including the Best Feature Film of 2013 at the Directors Guild of Canada's Awards.
Throughout her career, Mehta has received numerous awards and honors, including the Life of Distinction Award from the Canadian Centre of Diversity, the Excellence in the Arts Award from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Woman of Distinction, President's Award from the YMCA. She is a recipient of the Governor General's Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Film and has been appointed as an officer to the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour.
