Deepa Mehta, the Cosgrove Distinguished Visiting Artist at Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television, was honored with the 2008 Infinite Power of Story Lifetime Achievement Award at LMU’s Film Outside the Frame Festival.
Mehta’s appointment as the Cosgrove Visiting Artist was during the fall 2007 and 2008 academic years. She participated in numerous workshops, seminars and lectures with an emphasis on humanistic visual storytelling for film. Mehta held special master classes on screenwriting, directing and developing one’s creativity and humanistic storytelling voice. Mehta also mentored students and provided them with a comprehensive look at creating transformational films on the international stage.
Mehta was born in India and received a degree in philosophy from the University of New Delhi. Her first feature film, “Sam & Me,” won the first Honorable Mention Camera D’Or at the 1991 Cannes Film Festival. Mehta’s Academy Award-nominated “Water,” the third film in her elements trilogy after “Fire” and “Earth,” opened the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in Canada in the fall of 2005, grossing more than $2 million. “Water” is the first Canadian film acquired by U.S. distributor Fox Searchlight and was released in the United States in 2006. Mehta’s most recent film, “Heaven on Earth,” depicts immigration, isolation and the power of imagination, and had its world premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival last month.
During her tenure as Cosgrove Visiting Artist, Mehta “greatly enriched students’ lives and, in turn, helped to advance the SFTV philosophy of nurturing the next generation of diverse storytelling voices and creative leaders of the new global media community,” said Teri Schwartz, dean of the School of Film and Television. Mehta’s lifetime achievement award honors her commitment to film education and her contributions to the School of Film and Television.
