Biography

Deepa Mehta is a prolific Indo-Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and producer. She is the co-founder of Hamilton-Mehta Productions. She is best known for making movies on sensitive issues of society. She is an internationally acclaimed filmmaker and her movies are played at almost all the major international film festivals. [6]Hamilton-Mehta Productions.She was born in Amritsar, which is about 28 km away from the border of Pakistan. She grew up watching and learning the after-effects and impact of the partition of India. In an interview, Deepa said, Even when I was growing up in Amritsar, we used to go every weekend to Lahore, so I just grew up around people who talked about it incessantly and felt it was one of the most horrific sectarian wars they knew of..She shifted to Delhi with her family in her childhood.Her father worked as a film distributor in Delhi which is why she grew up watching Indian commercial cinema. [7]The Canadian Encyclopedia.Later. during her college life, Deepa started watching Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Non-Hindi cinema and Non-Japanese cinema. She even got exposure with directors like Truffaut, Godard, Ozu and Mizoguchi.After completing college, Mehta began working for a production company that made documentaries for the Indian government. [8]The Canadian Encyclopedia.When Deepa was directing her first film which was based on a child bride, she met Canadian filmmaker, Paul Saltzman. They got married in 1970 and moved together to Toronto, Canada in 1973, where they co-founded the production house, Sunrise Films. [9]The Canadian Encyclopedia.Soon after, the couple welcomed their daughter, Devyani Saltzman, who is an author and a critic.Deepa made several documentaries and a tv series titled Spread Your Wings (197779) under her production house, with her husband Paul and her brother, Dilip Mehta who is an Indo-Canadian photojournalist best known for his coverage of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy.Deepa Mehta divorced her then-husband, Paul Saltzman in 1983 and got married to Canadian film producer, David Hamilton, who holds an MBA from Harvard University. [10]The Canadian Encyclopedia.