Michelle Mama

Michelle Mama is a Canadian writer, director, producer, and LGBTQIA+ advocate known for her work in film and television. She directed the episode Fluid: Beyond the Binary for CBC's The Nature of Things and co-founded GAY AGENDA, a Toronto-based production company focused on LGBTQIA+ stories. Mama has been nominated five times for Canadian Screen Awards, including for her work on Lost Car Rescue and Shine True, and won one for Canada’s Drag Race. She has won several industry awards for her documentary and reality television productions.
Mama directed Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, a 2024 episode of CBC’s The Nature of Things that examines gender and sexual fluidity in humans and the natural world.

Background

She was born and raised in Canada in Parsi-Zoroastrian Family. Her parents immigrated from Karachi, Pakistan, and her family traces its roots to both India and Pakistan. She is a vocal advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights and representation in the media.

Career

Writer and director

Mama has worked for over two decades in various roles across the entertainment industry. As a writer, she contributed to Baroness Von Sketch Show, a series known for its sharp humour and social commentary. She also directed the award-winning documentary 21 Days to Nawroz, a film out the struggles of women in Kurdistan in the north of war-torn Iraq
Mama also produced Your Beautiful Cul de Sac Home, a feature comedy, starring Valerie Buhagiar, Ennis Esmer, Charles Officer, and Matt Gordon.
In 2023, Mama directed Fluid: Beyond the Binary, an episode of The Nature of Things featuring non-binary comedian Mae Martin. The episode explores the complexity of gender identity, with an emphasis on queer representation in media.
In addition, she worked on the 2023 series Lost Car Rescue, earning a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Direction in a Factual Program.
Being tapped by the National Film Board of Canada to direct two short films honouring laureates of the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for 2024.

Producer and showrunner

Mama's production credits include In The Making, a CBC Arts documentary series featuring sixteen films profiling groundbreaking Canadian artists which was nominated for several awards at the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards and Summer Qamp,a documentary that follows LGBTQIA+ youth attending Camp fYrefly in rural Alberta for a week of queer joy and discovery. She is also the showrunner, series producer, and director for the Shine True documentary series, which received recognition for its focus on LGBTQIA+ fashion and beauty.
She served as Executive Producer of Canada’s Drag Race and Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. The World.

Advocacy and cultural impact

Her work often highlights issues of identity, belonging, and culture, with a special focus on the intersection of queer narratives. This includes her ongoing involvement in the documentary AntiDiva: The Confessions of Carole Pope, which is set to delve into the life of Canadian rock icon Carole Pope.
Mama is an outspoken advocate for increased LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC representation in Canadian film and television. She has commented on the structural barriers faced by queer creators, noting:
“From the beginning of producing I’ve always believed … if it’s queer content, and you have queer people in the room, it’s better.”
She has also observed that decision-makers in Canadian broadcasting can be risk-averse, limiting authentic queer representation on screen.
Mama emphasizes the importance of preserving generational memory in queer storytelling, stating:
“We focus too much on youth and beauty in the queer community … we also lost two generations of very wonderful … men to the AIDS crisis.”
She was named in Toronto Life’s Most Influential People list for 2024.

Entrepreneurship and GAY AGENDA

In 2023, she founded GAY AGENDA, a queer-owned production company based in Toronto, focused on telling stories by, for, and about queer communities. GAY AGENDA was nominated as Top Emerging Indie by realscreen magazine.
GAY AGENDA, has multiple documentary and scripted projects in development, including an untitled documentary about queer elders for TVO and the factual series Your Grandma Loves Me, featuring comedian Brandon Ash-Mohammed.
Through Gay Agenda, Mama continues to expand her work across multiple formats, including factual, scripted, and animated projects. She also directs short films for the National Film Board of Canada, such as the 2024 Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards tributes, and is developing additional large-scale documentary features. Her current work increasingly highlights intergenerational and community-based themes, as seen in Queer Elders.,

Views and Opinions

She has spoken about the importance of involving LGBTQIA+ and gender-diverse individuals in all stages of production, arguing that inclusion behind the camera leads to more truthful and resonant work. She has said that “if it’s queer content, and you have queer people in the room, it’s better,” reflecting her belief that representation must extend beyond the screen to the production process.
Mama has also critiqued the Canadian television industry’s tendency toward risk aversion, suggesting that commissioning and funding bodies often hesitate to support unconventional or unapologetically queer narratives. She advocates for greater institutional support for creators whose lived experiences reflect the stories being told.