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Supervisor: Sailaja Krishnamurti
Research interests: As a working artist, researcher, and writer, I am committed to anti-colonial, anti-racist, compassionate, interdisciplinary, liberatory, pleasure-oriented, and speculative approaches. Further, as Jacqui Alexander describes, I am interested in "how to use flesh-and-blood experiences to concretize a vision"; how to draw from my own lived realities and document that of other artists; and how to create collaborative work that reflects our past learnings, current positions, and future visions of what is possible and still to come. Overall, my practice is grounded within a diasporic feminist consciousness, and my research and creative interests live at the intersections of race and gender, love and care, spirituality and the sacred, freedom and wellness, and sensuality and sexuality.

Biography: V.T. Nayani is a multidisciplinary artist, researcher, and storyteller. She is an alumni of multiple programs and labs, including EFM's Fiction Toolbox Programme ('25), Film Independent's Episodic Directing Intensive ('25) and Episodic Lab ('24), The Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television's Directors Program for Women ('22), The Canadian Film Centre's Directors' Lab ('21), and BIPOC TV & Film's Showrunner Bootcamp ('22) and Directors' Masterclass ('23). As an artist, she has also been championed by platforms including The Gotham, Berlinale, Telefilm Canada, Netflix, Directors' Guild of Canada, CBC, Bell Media, Reelworld, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts. Along her journey, Nayani's films have been programmed by international festivals including TIFF, Blackstar, Women of the World, Women Deliver, Frameline, Inside Out, NewFest, Outfest, ZIFF, and IFFI Goa. Notably, she is a recipient of the UN Women Yvonne M. Hebert Award for media artists.

Nayani's award-winning feature directorial debut, THIS PLACE, premiered at the 47th Toronto International Film Festival. It has since screened globally and is now available in multiple territories. She is currently developing a slate of film, television, and multimedia projects, in addition to her scholarly research and writing as a PhD Candidate in Gender Studies at Queen's University. Outside of her work in the screen industries, Nayani is a certified full-spectrum doula and hatha yoga instructor, completing her training with Shafia M. Monroe at the International Center for Traditional Childbearing and Heather Greaves at Body Therapies Yoga Training. She also completed her Bachelor of Journalism (Radio & Television Broadcasting) at Toronto Metropolitan University and an M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at York University. Nayani is a member of the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC-Ontario), Film Independent, The Gotham, Film Fatales, WIFT-Toronto, AWID, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia.