Deepa Mehta

• Controversial topics
• Beautiful cinematography
• Oriented toward female characters
• Focused on pure human emotions

Deepa Mehta is an Indo-Canadian filmmaker and screenwriter. She is best known for the Elements Trilogy: Fire, Earth, and Water. Mehta was born in Amritsar, Punjab but, later moved to New Delhi. She started working for a production company that created documentary and educational films. Mehta also directed her own documentaries. In 1991, she made her first film, Sam and Me. It broke the record for highest-budgeted film directed by a women in Canada. In 1996, Mehta directed the movie, Fire, which was critically acclaimed for its realistic portray of a homosexual relationship between two women in an Indian society. She also directed Earth in 1998 and Water in 2002. For now, she is focusing on TV series like Leila or Little America.

Deepa Mehta is known as the "quintessential transnational filmmaker". She creates a duality between national and cultural identity in her film. Mehta adds a "Westernized" philosophy in them which led to big controversies, several boycotts, and many protests of her films. However, many people have appreciated her work because these taboo topics are never spoken about. She is one of the few directors who have shone a light on them. Some of the films also resembled her own life just like the Parsi family in Earth.

"She uses her cinema to explore the darkness behind the color, digging into the rigid traditions and violent orthodoxy of Indian society. She deliberately shatters the region’s self-image and lazy exoticism onscreen. It is often not a pretty sight" - Bilal Qureshi

"Reminds us that Mehta is a filmmaker of courage -- she refused to abandon this film even after fundamentalist protestors shut down the production in India -- and singular style, telling stories that have never been told on screen" - Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press