By Giovanna Vicini
Not many college students have the honor of being referred to as an “award-winning screenwriter.” But Aashka Pandya, a graduating student double-majoring in Film & Media Studies and Communication, earned that elite title earlier this year when she received the Best Screenplay award at the 2019 Santa Barbara International Film Festival 10-10-10 Competition.
Her successful script, The Quarter-Life Crisis, is rooted in Pandya’s own personal experiences as a young Indian-American woman and is the latest addition to her body of work as an aspiring screenwriter. The story follows aspiring novelist Alisha and her sister Sonia as they learn to resist familial and cultural pressure on their career choices.
Pandya has also recently produced Our Last Trash, an environmental documentary exploring zero-waste and plastic-free living, and she wrote and directed The In(De)pendent Spouse, a short film following a first-generation Indian immigrant as she pursues higher education and navigates her arranged marriage.
I recently sat down with Pandya for a discussion about the ways in which her cultural identity influences her filmmaking and her career aspirations for the future.
Q. What was the highlight of your victory at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival?
A. The highlight was working with my screenwriting mentor [television writer and producer] Robert Sternin. I remember when I sent him my script for the first time and met with him and his wife Prudence Fraser, who is also a writer. Both of them gave me so much insight within an hour, and I learned more from them than I have from anyone else at UCSB. He was always there advocating for me with my director during moments of creative conflict, explaining why the script should remain the way it is.
[Sternin] actually told me two months before the premiere that I was going to win. I didn’t think much of it. The day they called my name, I was not prepared at all. It didn’t even cross my mind that I would win, but afterward he found me and said, “I told you.” That was really validating to hear from someone in the industry—that he liked my work, and that my script reminded him of his relationship with his sister. I realized that my script had a universal message.
Q. In addition to writing, you have also worked behind the camera. What are some of your proudest moments as a filmmaker?
A. One of the proudest moments I had was completing the film I directed during my third year, The (In)Dependent Spouse. That was a huge learning curve for me, and I describe it as the best and worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. It was so emotionally overwhelming, but in an amazing way. During filming I perceived that a lot of people doubted the success of the film and we had a lot of mishaps happen to the crew. But at the premiere, people came up to me and were impressed with it.
The (In)Dependent Spouse, written and directed by Aashka Pandya, had its world premiere at the Pollock Theater in March 2018. (Photo by Aashka Pandya)
I entered it into festivals, and it was selected for the Chicago South Asian Film Festival. Travelling to Chicago and seeing my film on an actual movie theater screen was really great. Having other directors, who are 10 to 15 years older than me, tell me that they liked my work was incredible. The documentary [Our Last Trash] I produced that same year in the spring has been selected for 5 or 6 festivals and has won awards in several of those too.
Q. Your scripts, including The Quarter-Life Crisis and The (In)Dependent Spouse, often revolve around Indian-American characters and experiences. What do you think of how Indian Americans are represented in media today?
A. I feel like it’s getting a lot better, but I’ve noticed that there are not a lot of drama shows with Indian-American leads, while there are more comedy shows with them. I think that’s interesting because when you have a comedy, you have more opportunities to reinforce stereotypes. I feel like a lot of Indian comedians do that, where they’ll joke about strict parents and arranged marriage and reaffirm those stereotypical things. I’m not offended by those things. I even find it funny. But I feel like the integration of Indian Americans into mainstream situations is just not there yet. If something stars an Indian person, it’s usually all about them being Indian. What I want to do is create a drama show with a cast that just so happens to be Asian American. Content like that in general with Asian American people is not there yet.
Q. What are your thoughts on diversity in media in general?
A. I think that growing up, I didn’t realize how important it is to have someone that looks like you on screen. My favorite Disney princess growing up was always Jasmine, and I didn’t realize until recently that it was probably because she was the closest thing I had to Indian representation.
I feel like whiteness in media is so ingrained that you might not even notice when there aren’t any people of color on a show, but now I’m starting to notice it. This country is so culturally diverse, but the way it’s represented in media doesn’t reflect that diversity. If you want to have a show that’s realistic, you must have people of color in it. And within that there are so many other topics, such as class differences, that are so important to talk about. It’s crucial to have people from different cultural backgrounds involved in a project because it will help make the show more holistic and realistic.
Q. What are your professional goals? How does your identity as a woman of color influence what you want to achieve?
A. The end goal is to write for television and be the showrunner of my own show. I grew up in an area full of Asian Americans [the Bay Area], so I didn’t see any lack of representation within my community because it was everywhere. But coming here [to Santa Barbara], I don’t see it as much. I realized that nobody else is going to make movies about Indian people except Indian people.
I always joke that every other sentence, I say something about the fact that I’m Indian. But I feel like sometimes I have to do that because otherwise, who else is going to talk about those people or those issues? I really want to bring that voice to mainstream television. When there are minority groups on television, you hear people say, “We already have that. We already have Fresh Off the Boat; we don’t need another one.” I don’t think that makes any sense.
Giovanna Vicini is a fourth-year student at UC Santa Barbara, double-majoring in Film & Media Studies and Communication. She is graduating this spring and will be an intern this summer with the Television Academy Foundation in Los Angeles.
Writer Aashka Pandya stands outside the Arlington Theater in February 2019 after winning the award for Best Screenplay at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 10-10-10 Competition. (Photo by Max Merritt)