‘This is the gift of the National Film Board’: Canadian director Nisha Pahuja on her Oscar nomination

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While it wasn’t the full-on Canadian invasion of last year’s Oscars, the 2024 Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday featured a handful of high-profile homegrown talent: Ryan Gosling (Best Supporting Actor, Barbie), Celine Song (Best Director, Past Lives) and the late Robbie Robertson (Best Original Score, Killers of the Flower Moon).

Yet Canada’s most important, and perhaps most surprising, Oscars coup this year may be hiding in plain sight with the nomination of To Kill a Tiger in the Best Documentary Feature category. Directed by Toronto-based filmmaker Nisha Pahuja, the National Film Board of Canada-funded doc is a riveting and nuanced examination of cultural attitudes toward rape in India.

Focusing on one father’s quest for justice after his 13-year-old daughter is sexually assaulted by three men, Pahuja’s film was eight years in the making, beginning its life as a more wide-ranging look at masculinity and oppression in Indian culture.

A few minutes after watching the Oscars announcement Tuesday morning in her Park City, Utah, hotel room, while attending the Sundance Film Festival, Pahuja spoke with The Globe and Mail about To Kill a Tiger’s long journey to Academy Awards recognition.

Congratulations on the nomination. What’s your initial reaction?

Now it’s starting to sink in – it’s settling. But earlier this morning I was so nervous, and my heart was pounding and terrified and hopeful – this jumbled mixture of emotions. But now it feels wonderful.

The production was a long journey for you and your team, but it’s also been out in the world for a while now, since it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022. What’s it been like to watch the life cycle of the film?

It’s been emotionally up and down. But once we figured out what the film was and zeroed in on what the film would be, I knew that the story we were capturing was powerful. I’ve known for a long time how important this story was and the impact it could have, and that’s why I got into making documentaries. It’s always been about social justice. And because the way this film had been put together by an incredible team. And look what we’ve done.

How instrumental was the NFB in getting this film out there?

This is the gift of the NFB – they gave me the space to take the time that I needed to make the film. Never once over the editing process, which took about three years, did they ask, ‘What is she doing?’ There was never any fear or worries, it was always tremendous support. They honoured the filmmaker’s vision, which is critical. And that’s starting not to be as important as the ecosystems around filmmaking change.

On that question of ecosystems, the documentary world has never been the easiest one to operate in. But the past few years seem to have been especially challenging – streamers are pulling out of the market after the pandemic-era boom in non-fiction cinema, and there are so many titles from the festival circuit that have sat unsold. What’s your take on the current landscape?

We really made this as a group of women outside any ecosystem. We don’t have distribution support anywhere in the world other than Canada. We’ve been doing this on our own. I found that initially really difficult and kept hoping that somebody would pick us up. But now that I’m here in this moment, I’m grateful for the experience that we had, because it’s allowed us to manage and run an awards campaign in the way that we want. Every film’s journey has its own story, and this is ours.

There tends to be the question when talking about Canadian films and the Oscars about just what is a “Canadian” film – is it a movie funded by Canadian bodies, one that takes place in Canada, one that tells a “Canadian” story …

For me, the question itself is why we feel the need to ask that question and what its relevance is. For me, it’s not a relevant question any more. It’s not an important question any more. I just see myself as a filmmaker. I don’t see myself as coloured, I don’t see myself as a woman. Those are all identities and constructs that have been imposed on me, and they’re limiting. What’s important is to move away from them. There’s no such thing as a “Canadian” filmmaker or an “American” filmmaker. I’m just a filmmaker, a storyteller.

To Kill a Tiger is streaming for free on nfb.ca and via the NFB app.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify the Nisha Pahuja's description of To Kill a Tiger's production team, which included women and men.