Priyanka Chopra And Anjula Acharia Celebrate South Asian Excellence At The Oscars

When Priyanka Chopra and Anjula Acharia started their journey in Hollywood 12 years ago, there wasn’t a community full of writers, directors, actors, producers, and executives driving representation and inclusion as there is now. Chopra and Acharia hosted the second annual South Asian Excellence celebration not only to bring together the community and celebrate its wins in Hollywood, but to fuel more diversity in Hollywood by encouraging the guests to work on more projects that include South Asian casts and storylines.

The evening was hosted at Paramount Pictures and celebrated Oscar nominees like ll That Breathes, The Elephant Whisperers, Stranger at the Gate, Everything Everywhere All at Once, “Naatu Naatu” who won an Oscar, Joyland, and Last Film Show. This year’s sponsors for the event included Paramount Global, UTA, Content for Change, MTV, Purple Pebble Pictures, A-Game Public Relations, and Falguni and Shane Peacock. The event was also co-hosted by co-hosts Malala Yousafzai, Mindy Kaling, Kumail Nanjiani, Kal Penn, Aziz Ansari, Bela Bajaria, Radhika Jones, Joseph Patel, Shruti Ganguly, and Anita Chatterjee, with musical performances by Ali Sethi, DJ Rekha, and Sway Bhatia.

“There are many who paved the way like Aasif Mandvi, Sarita Choudhury, Mira Nair, and Shekhar Kapur to name just a few, and they had so little to work with. They have endured and stood the test of time. Everything we have today is built on the backs of luminaries like them. It’s critical that we collaborate and celebrate each other, and that’s what tonight was about,” said Acharia.

“We’re also here today to recognize and celebrate those who made this possible for all of us, many of us who hadn’t even begun our respective journeys, those who hustled for years to be seen and heard and to make sure that brown representation was here to stay, not just in front of the camera and behind it but also those who fought the stereotypes to ensure our stories were not just a cliche but a true reflection of who we are. For those who fought for actors to have bigger, leading parts, and for those who fought for stories of South Asian descent. For those who were marginalized and were the exception rather than the rule,” added Chopra.

“We’re here to celebrate them… stalwarts like Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta, my friends Sarita Choudhury, Ismail Merchant, Shekhar Kapur and Sakina Jaffrey, and of course her mother – the legendary Madhur Jaffrey. And of course the twptime Oscar winners Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, AR Rahman and the people in our midst – Aasif Mandvi, Mindy, Aziz, Bernard White…. who fought the hard fight for decades, you paved the way and laid the foundation for what we’re doing here today!”

Acharia is finding Hollywood to be evolving with more South Asian executives in the business who are pushing progress like Bela Bajaria, Chief Content Officer at Netflix, as well as allies who have also really pushed global storytelling diversification, like Jennifer Salke at Amazon. “I always go back to the importance of writers, the originators of our stories. Stories that are not full of stereotypes and singular narratives, but show the diversity of our communities,” she said.

Chopra stated that the community is more than just one big South Asian family, “We are a unique community of talented individuals from different backgrounds, stories, cultures, and languages. We are from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and the Maldives. I see you. We are brothers and sisters who have rallied together to have our voices heard, fighting tooth and nail for more seats at the table, so that when our children watch movies, tv, and other content they see people who look like them.”