Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta, ([diːpa ˈmeːɦta]; born 15 September 1950) is an Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for her Elements trilogy, Fire (1996), Earth (1998), and Water (2005), the last being nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. Earth was submitted by India as its official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Water was Canada's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, making it only the third non-French-language Canadian film submitted in that category after Attila Bertalan's 1990 invented-language film A Bullet to the Head and Zacharias Kunuk's 2001 Inuktitut-language feature Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner. She co-founded Hamilton-Mehta Productions, with her husband, producer David Hamilton in 1996. She was awarded a Genie Award in 2003 for the screenplay of Bollywood/Hollywood. In May 2012, Mehta received the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement, Canada's highest honor in the performing arts.