Receiving an Oscar is every artist’s dream, and getting nominated for the same is like standing one small step away from one’s ‘dream come true’ moment. The 96th Academy Awards nominees list is out, and among the big names, one has stood out the most to the Indian audience. And it is that of Nisha Pahuja, who’s been nominated for ‘To Kill A Tiger’ under the Best Documentary Feature category.
Based in Toronto, Pahuja is an Indian-born filmmaker who moved to Canada during her formative years. There, she studied English Literature at the University of Toronto in hopes of writing fiction. Following one chance encounter with Canadian Producer Geeta Sondhi, she was hired as a researcher on the CBC documentary Some Kind of Arrangement. She’s also worked with Canadian filmmakers like John Walker and Ali Kazimi.
“I set out to be a writer, originally. While studying at the University of Toronto, I had to make a documentary for research purposes; that’s when I realised my true calling. It’s been two decades since,” said Pahuja in a 2015 interview with Tribune India.
Her directorial debut came in 2002 with the feature film titled Bollywood Bound. The documentary followed four Indo-Canadian aspiring actors in their journey to make it big in the world’s biggest film industry, a.k.a. Bollywood.
She noted, “I grew up on a staple diet of Hindi films and was always awed by what Indian films had to offer to girls growing up in the West. I saw young Indo-Canadians making a beeline for pageants and film shows, claiming their stakes in the game of fame that they could find only in the bright arc lights and beneath the greasepaint of Bollywood. I decided to track four such aspiring stars on a journey that was very enriching” while talking about the film, reported Rediff in 2002. The documentary got her nomination at the Gemini Award for Best Documentary Series.
Pahuja rose to fame in 2012 with her documentary The World Before Her. The film explores two conflicting worlds of young Indian girls, following one Ruhi Singh, a small-town girl, as she competes in Mumbai to win Miss India, and another, Prachi Trivedi, a militant leader of a fundamentalist Hindu camp, where she preaches stringent resistance to Western influence and culture.
A 2014 Business Standard report notes how the fateful 2012 Delhi gang rape case was a turning point for her to open her documentary for the Indian audience. “People have been talking to me about releasing it in India since 2012. I knew it would take a lot of work and energy. I was very exhausted making the film; so I wasn’t entertaining the idea. But the Delhi gang-rape was the turning point; so I thought I have to make sure the film comes out”, noted the reportm, citing Pahuja. It was via Anurag Kashyap’s help that the documentary saw a release in India.
In 2022, Pahuja released To Kill a Tiger, a documentary following Ranjit, a doting father and farmer from Jharkhand, as he campaigned for justice for his 13-year-old daughter, who was brutally assaulted by three men. Reportedly, the documentary premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022 and won the award for Best Canadian Feature Film.
Now, the documentary has been nominated for the Oscars, and we hope it receives the honour it deserves.
Additionally, Pahuja has also co-directed a 2007 docu-series titled Diamond Road along with Manfred Becker, exploring the world’s most precious gem.
It is reported that Nisha learned about her Oscar nomination along with the rest of the world watching the live announcement. “I was in shock. I couldn’t believe it. I was over the moon, she said.
Like last year with The Elephant Whisperers, we hope the streak continues, and India-based or Indian-origin filmmakers keep winning the recognition and acknowledgement they deserve.
