Canadian-born filmmaker Nisha Ganatra was BOTD in 1974. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, she began her career as an actress, before studying filmmaking at the University of California Los Angeles and New York University. In 1999, she wrote, directed and starred in her feature debut Chutney Popcorn, an upbeat comedy about an Indian-American lesbian struggling to reconcile family expectations with her sexuality. An award winner at LGBTQ film festivals around the world, the film was praised for its deft handling of sexual and racial politics and focus on LGBTQ characters of colour. She went on to write, direct and produce the feature films Cosmopolitan and Cake. After directing episodes of 2001 youth drama The Real World, she co-directed and produced Joey Soloway’s 2014 trans-themed TV series Transparent, for which she won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy Award. Her other television work includes The Mindy Project, Mr. Robot, Shameless, Girls and the calamitous but highly successful Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That. She made an impressive return to feature film directing Late Night in 2019 starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kalin, followed by The High Note in 2020. Her next film, the Disney comedy Freakier Friday, is due for release in 2025. Ganatra is in a relationship with TV producer Carolyn Strauss.