Profile Details
- Country: Canada
- Province/State: Ontario
- City: Toronto
- How do you Identify?: she/her
- Experience Level: Mid-Career
- Field of Work: Fiction/Scripted
- Union: Non-Union
- Interested In: TV Writing Room, Directing TV For Hire, Directing Film/Digital for Hire, Developing my own Film/TV/Digital Material, and Shadowing
- Recent Credits: Saturday Fuego Diablo (in development), Sinverguenzilla's First Kiss (pre-produciton); Mariah ¡Qué Baile! (completed); The Talent Scout (completed)
- Favourite Movies: Bacurau, Daughters of The Dust, Celeste & Jesse Forever, The Killing of A Chinese Bookie, Buffalo 66, Dogfight, The Florida Project
- Favourite TV Shows: Insecure, The Knick, The Good Place, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, Terrace House
- Authorized to work in the USA?: No
- Contact Information: https://cinematekkitsch.com/contact/
- Link: https://www.instagram.com/cinematekkitsch/
Bio
Anita Abbasi is a writer-director based in Tkarón:to (Toronto). Hailing from two disparate immigrant backgrounds — Pakistan & El Salvador — Anita’s work explores diasporic identity, (dis)connection to the “motherland”, our desire to be loved and Western popular culture. Cinema, music and laughter have always been places of belonging for her. As such, her stories, though mainly drama, often cross genres into comedy and dance musicals. She holds a BA in Creative Writing and Art History, and studied film directing under Deepa Mehta. She has produced three short films with co-director, Martin Baena: The Talent Scout (2015), French Poutine (2016) and Mariah ¡qué baile! (2017), the latter screening in several U.S. cities in 2018. Her first feature, Saturday Fuego Diablo, is in development with Eagle Vision Canada and was written with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
Intro
I am happy to be here, to add to this chorus of instrumental racialized talent in this land’s film industry. I am here to tell stories that are mine, that are shared experiences with others who have felt their identities muddled by the dominant white narrative. My goal as a filmmaker is to tell stories that will connect me to people. I do so by examining the common ground between the stories of racialized peoples and Western cinematic styles, often having characters of colour take on the world as one would see in a Hollywood picture. I would like to flex the cinematic language typical of Western dramatic filmmaking to include people from diverse backgrounds, thus conveying a universality to certain of our struggles, wants and experiences.
Reel/Clips
pw: aademoreel