LGBTQIA+ filmmaker Nisha Ganatra has joined PRETTYBIRD’s global roster of directors. The Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee–both for her directing and producing efforts on Transparent–drew worldwide attention from the advertising community with her Bodyform/Libresse campaign from AMV BBDO London, “#wombstories,” which earned many accolades including the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Film Craft: Directing, The One Show’s distinguished honor of Best in Show and #1 Director Globally, and The One Club for Creativity’s title of #1 Director. Ganatra was also listed in the recently released Cannes Lions’ Creativity Report as the #1 Director spanning the 2020 and ‘21 editions of the Festival. The “#wombstories” piece, produced by Ganatra’s former commercialmaking roost, Chelsea, additionally earned her a DGA Award nomination earlier this year in the Commercials category.
Kerstin Emhoff, PRETTYBIRD’s co-founder and CEO, said, “We are so excited to welcome Nisha to the nest! She showed the advertising world she’s here to stay with ‘#wombstories’ last year, and we are equally excited about partnering with her as writer/director/producer in film and TV. She is an incredible talent and we look forward to a long, successful partnership!”
Ganatra added, “I’m very excited to join the creative team at PRETTYBIRD. Kerstin, Ali (PRETTYBIRD president Brown), and Suzanne (EP Hargrove) are fierce allies to their artists and continually create memorable and unflinching work. They have passionately given their voice and their formidable talents to the underrepresented since they first formed and never stopped doing the right thing. I”m thrilled to be among the creative giants on their roster.”
In addition to her TV and ad industry exploits, Ganatra has feature film credits that include The High Note for Working Title and Focus Features starring Tracee Ellis Ross, and Late Night, starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling. Late Night premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 and was sold to Amazon in a record-breaking deal, garnering the highest streaming numbers of the year. Ganatra’s debut feature, Chutney Popcorn, won Audience Awards at multiple festivals including the Berlin International Film Festival, Newport Film Festival, and Outfest Los Angeles.
On the TV side, besides her award-winning work as director/producer on Amazon’s Transparent, Ganatra sold a comedy pilot to NBC with Amy Poehler producing, was co-executive producer/director for Better Things with Pamela Adlon, and created Code Academy for the ITVS/PBS series Futurestates. Ganatra has also directed episodes of Girls, Dear White People, Future Man, Mr. Robot, Shameless, Married, Brooklyn 9-9, Last Man on Earth, Love, and Black Monday.
Her first brand work was a seven-spot campaign for Google Home featuring comedy heavyweights Poehler, Tiffany Haddish, Amy Sedaris, Chelsea Peretti, and Maya Rudolph. Ganatra has also directed work for “Plan-B” inspired by her fierce advocacy for Planned Parenthood.
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More