Divya and her family are victims of these barriers. As a young

Divya and her family are victims of these barriers. As a young woman in India, Divya seemed to have it all. She was beautiful, married to a handsome man of great wealth, and was mother to their precious daughter Linny. But when Divya began acting erratically, and, at times, outrageously, her seemingly-perfect life fell apart. Divya’s husband abandoned both Divya and their three-year-old daughter, and the family disowned her after accusing Divya of having “bad blood.”

HIDING DIVYA is a superbly crafted film that tells a multigenerational story through narrative and flashbacks, and plunges viewers into Divya’s very hallucinations. The film resonates with anyone who has experienced the pains and joys of being in a family, and the responsibility of facing the past.
Mirza’s powerhouse feature film debut provides a rare, realistic and poignant glimpse into the lives of three generations of women: the bipolar matriarch Divya Shah (played by revered actress Madhur Jaffrey); her estranged daughter Linny (starring former Miss USA India, Pooja Kumar); and, Linny’s 16-year-old daughter, Jia (newcomer Madelaine Massey), whose emotional turmoil is buried under a veil of secrecy.

Combining the deft humor of Mirza’s award-winning shorts with the philosophical twists of her acclaimed stage plays, HIDING DIVYA tells a story of denial, shame, guilt and, most of all, love.

The following video gives an inside look into the film which releases next weekend on Aug 20.

Biographies on the women behind HIDING DIVYA

Rehana Mirza

Rehana Mirza is a screenwriter, playwright and director. HIDING DIVYA marks her feature film debut.

Rehana has written and directed seven short films: the award-winning Modern Day Arranged Marriage, (NBC Short Cuts Audience Award; LOGO short film feature; featured in over forty international film festivals), Love Story, Ode to NYC, Looking Good, Feeling Better, Memory & Dream, Fillum Star: The Peter Patel Story, Sightlines and Dear Santa. Her feature screenwriting credits include Bhanging It (Scriptapalooza Semifinalist), There’s Something About Marriage (IFP Emerging Narrative Selection, Page International Semifinalist), Tiger Meat, Paradise, Quarter Life Crisis, and Far from Home (Sundance Feature Film Labs Finalist).

Her debut full-length play, Barriers, premiered at HERE Arts Center in New York City to sold-out audiences before being co-produced by the Asian American Theatre Company in San Francisco/Los Angeles and published with Alexander Street Press. Other stage plays have been presented in New York (Culture Project, EST, The Flea, Tenement Museum, DR2Lounge), Los Angeles (Artwallah), Toronto (Rasik Arts), Philadelphia (Asian American Centre) and Washington, D.C. (Arth).
Mirza received a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council artist grant for HIDING DIVYA and was a 2002 Independent Feature Project trainee. She is a Leopold Schepp Scholar, a resident member of Ma-Yi Theater’s Writer’s Lab, a Lark/IAAC Playwright in Residence, a 2G Resident Artist, the recipient of an EST/Sloan Commission, John Golden Award, a P2 for a Cause grant and a TCG Future Leaders mentorship with New Georges. Rehana is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Desipina Productions (www.desipina.org). Mirza graduated with honors from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Dramatic Writing and a minor in Asian Pacific American Studies. She has an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University.

Rohi Mirza Pandya

Rohi Mirza Pandya has garnered attention for her numerous producing accomplishments in the film, television and theater industries. Film producing credits include: the award-winning short Modern Day Arranged Marriage and the upcoming feature film Hiding Divya (http://www.hidingdivya.com ) starring Madhur Jaffrey, Pooja Kumar and Deep Katdare. Both films are currently on the international film festival circuit. TV producing credits include: the award-winning mini-series Finding My America , the 2005 & 2006 SASA Specials and the 2005 DesiClub.com South Asian Media Awards.

Theater producing credits include: Prince of Delhi Palace, Broke, Barriers a play which addresses the backlash against South Asians post 9/11 and the award-winning & popular Seven.11 series. Seven.11 is a show that consists of seven eleven minute plays all set in a convenience store which for the last five years consistently bridged the gap between the South Asian and Asian communities.

She holds a MBA from the University of Colorado and a BA in Economics and Political Science from Rutgers University.