Yahoo Lifestyle Oscar Nominee Nisha Pahuja Joins Emma Thompson As EP Of ‘Mediha’, Award-Winning Doc About Yazidi Girl Who Survived ISIS Nightmare
EXCLUSIVE: Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Nisha Pahuja has signed on as an executive producer of Mediha, the Oscar-contending film about a Yazidi girl who was seized by ISIS and sold into slavery.
Pahuja, who earned an Oscar nomination earlier this year for To Kill a Tiger, joins fellow EPs Emma Thompson, Rick Dugdale, Joyce Pierpoline, Jason Loftus, and Håkan Karlsson on the project. The documentary directed by Hasan Oswald premiered at DOC NYC last year, winning the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary. It has gone on to screen at festivals around the world, earning more than a dozen prizes.
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Others from the To Kill a Tiger team also boarded the project: Andy Cohen as executive producer, Beesham Seecharan as co-executive producer, and Geeta Sondhi as consulting producer. The new additions were welcomed by Jason Loftus, an executive producer of both To Kill a Tiger and Mediha.
The titular Mediha was only 9 years old when ISIS radicals kidnapped her in Northern Iraq in 2014. The Islamist group, which had declared its intent to establish a caliphate, directed particular ferocity at Yazidis like Mediha, members of an ethnic and religious minority that occupies areas within Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. As part of their murderous campaign, ISIS fighters killed an estimated 50,000 Yazidis and forced women and girls into sexual servitude.
In the film, Mediha, who is now 19, “turns her camera on herself to process her trauma after surviving captivity from ISIS,” a synopsis notes. “Through her personal video-diaries, she confronts her trauma and pain, while also initiating investigations into her captors. Mediha’s journey is one of courage and determination as she steps bravely towards a future of justice and healing.”
Pahuja’s film To Kill a Tiger centers on a girl living in a village in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand who is sexually assaulted by three young men. Kiran and her father Ranjit pursued justice, defying intense pressure from villagers who demanded she marry one of her attackers to “save face.”
“It’s an honor to join the team behind Mediha, one of the most powerful, poetic documentaries I’ve ever seen,” Pahuja said in a statement. “By giving Mediha the camera, Hasan challenges the power dynamic so many of us struggle with when telling such sensitive stories. Mediha shines, both in front and behind the camera. Her resilience and steadfast pursuit of justice is profoundly moving and reminds me so much of Kiran from To Kill a Tiger. I know that like her, Mediha will inspire survivors around the world to raise their voices and fight back. It’s a privilege to be part of her journey and this exquisite film, so beautifully helmed by Hasan Oswald.”
As Deadline reported, Together Films acquired Mediha in September. The documentary opens in U.K. theaters today after bowing in the U.S. in October, a theatrical run that qualified the film for Oscar consideration.
“We are beyond blessed and excited to have Nisha Pahuja join our team officially as an Executive Producer,” director Hasan Oswald said. “Nisha has been a long time supporter of this film from day one. There are so many parallels between To Kill A Tiger, looking at Kiran’s experience and Mediha’s experience, there’s a clear throughline that connects us and I couldn’t be more honored to have her on board.”
Screenings of Mediha are planned in the coming months at the UN and the U.K. parliament in London. The film will be featured at Deadline’s upcoming Contenders: Documentary event.
Mediha is directed and produced by Hasan Oswald and produced by Annelise Mecca, Fahrinisia Campana, Alexander Spiess, and Stephen Nemeth.
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