Kavery Kaul of New York Women in Film & Television: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Filmmaker

Diverse stories and diverse storytellers give viewers a chance to walk in another person’s shoes. They open viewers’ eyes to another way of looking at things, and another way of looking at themselves.

As a part of our series called “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Became A Filmmaker”, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kavery Kaul.

Kavery Kaul is an award-winning director, producer, and writer, who uses an intimate lens to craft stories which boundlessly straddle different worlds. The founder of riverfilms, her work has been featured at DOC NYC, Telluride, London, Rotterdam, and Sydney Festivals, among other major festivals. It has reached wide audiences in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Her credits include Cuban Canvas, an Imagen Award Nominee which premiered at the Kennedy Center; Long Way from Home, a Film Threat and Time Out Critic’s Pick; and First Look, presented on PBS-TV by the National Latino Broadcasting Consortium (LPB).

On September 9th, Kaul’s latest documentary feature The Bengali will premiere at The Quad Ciema in NYC, co-presented by New York Women in Film & Television and the Indo-American Arts Council. In the film, an unlikely quest takes an African American woman from New Orleans to India in search of her family’s past, sparking an intriguing encounter between East and West. Dada Films is releasing The Bengali September 9 in New York and September 16 in Los Angeles, with select cities to follow. The film is another wonderful installment in Kaul’s storied career bringing intriguing cultural narratives to the screen.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit of the ‘backstory’ of how you grew up?

I came from India to America with my parents as a child. Nobody here ate samosas then, and mangos were exotic fruit most people had never heard of.

My parents came as graduate students thanks to lots of financial aid. I remember they and their…