After 18 months of working on the script, Ruba Nada filmed “Coldwater” in Toronto.
Last week, I received an email message from the director announcing the launch of her updated Web site. I was pleased to be included in her distribution list because she provides me with creative inspiration, despite the fact I am not familiar with her award-winning work.
Ruba Nadda has been writing, producing, and directing films since age 24. Since shooting three short films for a summer film program at New York University, the filmmaker has independently written, directed, and produced 12 short films and two feature films for which she has collected awards from all over the world. She’s been profiled in regional, national, and international newspapers and magazines, her fiction work has been widely published, she has a forthcoming collection of short stories, and has had 15 retrospectives of her work mounted, but for the most part her work is unknown in Canada.
This time around, she secured a distributor and Atom Egoyan as executive producer and his wife, Arsinee Khanjian to star. She also obtained grant money, making it possible to quit her day job to concentrate on her film.
I first learned about this extraordinary filmmaker in Saturday Night (November 22, 2000), while on a coffee break from a temp job I hated.
I was flipping through the tattered issue when I came across a headline that read “Filmmaker, Clerical Worker, Festival Darling.”
The “clerical worker” label grabbed my attention.
In this first-person piece, Ruba spoke passionately about her work. I read the article twice and held back tears. Sitting alone in the company lunchroom, I wondered why I could not earn a living doing what I loved doing.
Back at my desk, I thought about Ruba and her passion for filmmaking and when I got home, I emailed her a note to thank her for being an inspiration to me.
In the article, she wrote “I am working non-stop as a clerk and I hate my job and . . . sometimes I don’t understand why I’m doing it.”
However, Ruba knows. She understands why she lives the way she does – in a small apartment sinking all her money into her films.
“I realize it’s because I love it and I have no other choice. There’s nothing else that I would be good at doing.”
After reading this last line several times, I returned to my desk and my dead-end clerical job. Later, I snuck back to the empty lunchroom and ripped the article from the magazine. It hangs on the wall of my home office in front of the computer on which I write.
While Ruba’s work has been described as exceptional, the enthusiasm, passion, and tenacity with which she pursues her dream are truly inspiring.
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This article first appeared in slightly different form in an issue of Durham Council for the Arts award-winning magazine Artsforum.