Profile: Nisha Ganatra
Nisha Ganatra, an openly lesbian Indian-American filmmaker who graduated from the New York University Graduate Film School, where she studied with legendary directors Martin Scorcese and Spike Lee.
Her first full-length feature film, 1999's Chutney Popcorn, followed an Indian-American lesbian as she balances her family's acceptance of her sexual orientation and her girlfriend's experiences in dealing with her culture. The film won awards at numerous film festivals, including festivals in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin and Paris.
Ganatra has also worked on projects for the small screen, including MTV's Road Rules and 12 seasons of MTV's The Real World. She recently completed directing Cosmopolitan, an adaptation of the novel by Indian writer Akhil Sharma and written by Sabrina Dhawan.