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Dispersion
Episode 5 - Artist vs Spokesperson
In this episode award-winning Canadian filmmakers Atom and Deepa explore their roles in sharing their culture and identity through film. They also dive into issues such as representation in film, and discuss the struggle between being an artist and spokesperson for their communities.
To learn more about the themes presented in this episode, refer to these papers from Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies:
- Alessandrini, A. C. (2001). “My heart’s Indian for all that”: Bollywood film between home and diaspora. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 10(3), 315-340. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.10.3.315
- Moser, R. H., & Racy, A. J. (2010). The homeland in the literature and music of Syrian-Lebanese immigrants and their descendants in Brazil. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 19(2-3), 280-311. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.19.2-3.280
- Francis, G. M. (2021). Performing while Black: Disrupting gender and sexuality from Trinidad to Norway—The artivism of Thomas Prestø. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 21(2), 279-296. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.21.2.2021.05.14.2
- Siraganian, L. (1997). “Is this my mother’s grave?”: Genocide and diaspora in Atom Egoyan’s Family Viewing. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 6(2), 127-154. https://doi.org/10.3138/diaspora.6.2.127
Guest Bios
Born in Egypt to Armenian parents, Atom Egoyan moved to Canada at an early age and was raised in Victoria, B.C. He developed an early interest in drama and continues to work in theatre and opera, with upcoming productions at Pacific Opera Victoria, the Montreal Opera and the Canadian Opera Company. His eighteen features have won two Academy Award nominations and five prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Grand Prix and International Critics Awards.
Deepa Mehta is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker whose work is celebrated on an international scale. Her emotionally resonating, award-winning films have played every major film festival, and been sold and distributed around the globe. Her films include the Elemental Trilogy: Earth, Fire, Water, the final film of which received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film, Bollywood/Hollywood, Heaven on Earth and the epic adaptation of Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie’s three-time Booker Prize winning novel. Her work challenges traditions and stereotypes and is always daring, fearless and provocative. It’s this spirit that saturated her feature film Anatomy of Violence. Deepa shot the pilot and second episode for the Netflix Original series, Leila, and is the Creative Executive Producer for the show. She also directed The Manager, the pilot episode of Little America for Apple TV. Her latest feature film Funny Boy is based on the award winning novel by Shyam Selvadurai. It has been released on Netflix through ARRAY, and on CBC Gem in Canada. It received awards for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Director at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards, and for Best Motion Picture and Best Supporting Performance Female at the 2021 Leo Awards. Deepa thoroughly enjoyed directing an iconic cast of the iconic script ‘Bear Down’ for Showtime’s series Yellowjackets. She is also the Writer and Director of Propagate Content’s feature film Burnt Sugar (Girl in White Cotton), based on Avni Doshi’s award-winning novel shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
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