Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
In October 2024, New Zealand-born, Australia-raised, and currently San Francisco-based filmmaker Meera Angelica Joshi won the prestigious Netflix grant at the Tasveer Film Festival for her narrative short film titled The Sale.
Her film follows a day in the life of Sita, an encyclopedia saleswoman in the Bay Area of the 1990s, and is inspired by Joshi’s mother Janaki, who was a door-to-door encyclopedia saleswoman in 1990s Sydney.
Joshi was driven to make this film when she realized that her mother’s experiences at her sales job as a woman of color were truly unique.
“There’s no image of a person of color – let alone a woman of color – doing this job,” she said, talking about the process of researching archives for this film. “If I don’t make this film, this little slice of history will just be lost forever!”
As we head into the Mother’s Day weekend, Community Reporter Tanay Gokhale caught up with Joshi about her film which is a tribute to the enterprising spirit of her mother.
Edited excerpts from her interview with India Currents below:
Q. Before we get to the film, how did your film-making journey start?
Meera Anjelica Joshi (MAJ): I was born in Auckland, New Zealand, and when I was eight months old, my parents moved to Sydney, Australia, where I grew up.
I’m an only child, so I feel like that also influenced my creativity, because I would spend a lot of time on myself just writing stories or experimenting with whatever media I had available. I soon understood that film captures, writing, photography, music. It just felt like an amazing canvas to play around with, and I started making very experimental movies – I even made a movie about a bread roll!
My parents are not very traditional, they’re very open-minded, and curious and excited about life, so I think they were good role models for me. My dad was so excited that I was interested in film. He was very supportive, which is really special because this is not a traditional path, you know. He got me all of these film textbooks, and bought me a Final Cut Pro (editing software) and said, “Meera, if you’re going to do this, you’re going to do it properly.”
When I was looking at film schools for my college, I’d really set my sights on NYU. I love New York. We had visited once, and I just fell in love with it. I went to NYU, where I furthered my directing skills.
I met my husband the year I graduated, and we went to Peru to learn Spanish and just try to make some documentaries there, as a change from making narrative films. We both worked freelance for a while after that after moving back to the United States, and then we joined forces to start Darling Street Pictures, our own production company!
Q. At the Tasveer film festival last year, you won the prestigious Netflix film fund for your film The Sale, which is a narrative short film that is inspired by your own mother. What’s the story there?
MAJ: So the encyclopedia chapter happened In Sydney, soon after my parents moved from New Zealand. At the time, my mother was working as an accountant and it became clear pretty soon that there weren’t a lot of opportunities for her to be promoted. She’s a very ambitious, smart person, so she said, “I don’t want to wait for somebody to give me the green light to move up in my career or my life. I want to start my own business.”
Obviously, she’s a very smart woman, but you have to know how to sell if you want to run your own business. So what’s the best way to learn? Doing one of the toughest things you can do, which is basically door-to-door encyclopedia sales! So that’s how she started.
That was in 1993, and that’s when my movie is set. And it’s actually a very interesting time because encyclopedias are still relevant, but the internet is also starting to creep in. I was really little then, and so I don’t really have much memory of that period.
But last year, I was visiting her when she was recovering from brain surgery. The effects of that surgery would make her feel a lot of emotions, and she suddenly started recounting some of her experiences from that chapter of her life. She was talking about how hard it was to have doors slammed in her face, doing house calls in the dark when it was raining, and also moments of human kindness that gave her hope when she was on the brink of quitting this job.
I didn’t know anything about other encyclopedia salespeople, and anything that exists? It’s white men. There’s no image of a person of color – let alone a woman of color – doing this job. As my mom says, women were outnumbered and there was only one other saleswoman in the firm she was working for.
Whenever they look back at that time, they’ll only know the white men who did this, but there was actually this incredible woman who was my mother who also did this job.
I was very inspired by that, and I just saw the whole film in my mind. It just clicked for me, that if I don’t make this film, this little slice of history will just be lost forever.
Q. How long do you think the film will be, and how closely does it mirror your mother’s experiences?
MAJ: This is a narrative short film, so I think it will be around 13 minutes long. Even though the events happened in Australia, I transposed it for the Bay Area because I find that California has a similar feeling to Australia. For example, the sunsets on the water here are so pretty, just like in Sydney. It is set in the 1990s, so it is kind of a period film.
As for the plot, it’s not a biopic but I had a lot of conversations with my mom about it. I made sure that the three houses that Sita – the protagonist – visits in the film are based on actual experiences my mom had at three houses during her job. The lead actress wanted to meet with her, so they actually had a call together, and they got to discuss all of these details.
Q. And how was the process of recreating the 1990s in a film?
MAJ: After I had nailed down the plot, I took down so many details about her job. For example, my mom would tell me that it was a time before mobile phones and Google Maps or GPS. So she would pull out the road map in the street directory, and she’d have her little notebook with all the addresses to chart out her path. So I have an incredible graphics prop designer named Jeanette Paak who created road maps inspired by the time period, and she also made the encyclopedias for the film as well.
Another detail was the big, bulky briefcase that salespeople used to carry around with them at the time. In the film, Sita has so many private moments and conversations in her car, so we made sure that she is driving a vintage car.
The fact that it is a period film and it is set in the 90s, I really wanted to have this very warm and vintage feel. Initially, my director of photography Juhi Sharma – she’s incredible – and I were thinking of anamorphic lenses. But as I was watching 90s media and thinking about VHS and how that might influence the film format, I was drawn back to the 4:3 aspect ratio.
If we had the budget for it, we would have shot on film, but instead we just opted for a warm, jewel-tone look and feel of the Kodad 200 film stock. Much of the inspiration came from the 90s analog media, really.
Q. You finished filming in March, how was that? And what’s next?
MAJ: It was a really intense shoot, but the footage looks so beautiful. I feel so grateful for the team that worked on this film, they were so passionate about it, which is really special to me. It was not an easy shoot, but it was a very fulfilling one for me, and I hope for everyone else in the cast and crew.
As for what’s next, we’re in the editing and post-production stage right now, and are putting together a rough cut. The film will be premiering at the Tasveer film festival in Seattle in October. After that, our first plan is just to have a good festival run. I hope it plays at a festival in the Bay Area, so that all the local cast and crew can come and see it, and then I hope it plays in a lot of festivals across the world, just so more audiences can watch the film!
Q. How can interested individuals support the film?
MAJ: You know, independent film-making is tough. The grant from Netflix is very generous, but there’s still a budget gap. So if people are inspired by the project and want to support, we are accepting donations. We have a fiscal sponsor called filmmakers collaborative SF, and that makes any contribution tax deductible, which is really great.
We’re also planning a fundraising party in San Francisco in June, so please do attend and learn more about the project if you’re interested. We can use all the support we can get!
To know more about The Sale and make a donation to support the film, click here. You can also follow the film on Instagram for updates.
