Elisa Paloschi: Cultivating Your Creativity, Telling Stories With Purpose, And Making Driving With Selvi

Director/Producer/Cinematographer Elisa Paloschi is on Cue To Cue today!! I am so excited to be able to bring this interview to you. Elisa has spent the past ten years bringing Driving With Selvi to the world. A documentary about a former child bride who ran away from her abusive husband and became South India’s first female taxi driver.

Yes, you read that correctly Elisa spent ten years working on this documentary! I was dying to know what made Elisa want to take ten years to develop this idea and see it through. I have the utmost respect and admiration for someone who has that kind of grit. I think most people would have abandoned the idea before it even reached the five-year mark. During the ten years Elisa made multiple trips to India and with the promise to Selvi that if at the end of the process she didn’t like the film it would never be released! I want to be Elisa when I grow up!! To have that kind of commitment to a project and to the people the project involves says so much about her character.

I am elated that Selvi did like the film and agreed to share her story with the world! Her story is one of strength and perseverance and is now empowering children and woman all over the world to understand that they have value and deserve to treated with love and respect.

Elisa has launched a campaign called Save Her Seat where donating $10 sponsors a girl in India to have the opportunity to see the movie. Selvi serves as a role model to these young girls and empowers them to think about their future and the more children that see this film closer we come to changing the conversation and treatment of women around the world.

Please take a moment to donate and Save Her A Seat

by Chelsea Johnson | Cue to Cue

Watch the trailer:

A little about Elisa:

With more than 25 years’ experience in documentary production as a director, producer, and cinematographer, Elisa Paloschi is president of Eyesfull, a Toronto-based independent production company dedicated to non-fiction documentaries that reflect the diversity of the human voice. Her first experimental short premiered at Int Film Fest Ouberhausent in 1992, and completed her first feature documentary, Embracing Voices, in 2012 (NXNE). Paloschi’s latest feature, Driving with Selvi (drivingwithselvi.com) premiered atRaindance in 2015; since then it has appeared at festivals around the world, winning a number of awards and accolades (best doc, and New Mavericks awards at Atlanta, best doc Reel Asian, best director Yorkton etc.) and was selected as an IDFA Top 10 Audience Favourite. She is currently working on the film’s multi-phase social engagement campaign, which will see the film screened to viewers across India in support of gender equality and economic empowerment for women and girls.(saveheraseat.com).