Alexandra Shiva

Alexandra Elizabeth Shiva is an American film director. Bombay Eunuch is her 2001 award-winning documentary. Her 2015 documentary, How to Dance in Ohio screened at the Sundance Film Festival in the US Documentary Competition and won a Peabody Award in 2016. It was adapted into a musical of the same name which made its Broadway debut in 2023. Shiva also founded the production studio Gidalya Pictures. Shiva was born in New York City, the daughter of Susan (née Stein) and Gil Shiva. Her grandfather was Jules C. Stein, founder of MCA, the film, television, and record company. She graduated Vassar College in 1995 with her B.A. in Art History. In 2003, Shiva married writer Jonathan Marc Sherman. They have two children. Shiva's first directed documentary film, Bombay Eunuch (2001), was co-directed with Sean MacDonald and Michelle Gucovsky. The film was released by Shiva's production company Gidalya Pictures. It examined the decline in the traditional status of eunuchs in India focusing on one family. Meena, the leader of the family Shiva follows around, allowed the filmmakers into the private world of hijras in hopes of improving the stigma around hijras. Shiva accomplished gaining access to the private world of hijras, which has traditionally been inaccessible to journalists. Thus allowing for a glimpse of a secretive, invisible world. The New Yorker commended the film for dignifying these outcasts and never condescending them. In 2006, Shiva directed her second documentary film Stagedoor. The film is about the Stagedoor Manor, a premier summer theatre camp for children ages 8 – 18. The film follows extroverted, budding young actors at Stagedoor Manor, where her husband also attended as a boy. Shiva continued to explore the theme of people who feel they don't belong but find communities where they do, with her third film How to Dance in Ohio (2015). The documentary takes place in Columbus, Ohio, following the story of three teenage girls with autism preparing to go to the prom. It shows the courage of people facing their fears and entering the adult world. This was Shiva's first film she created after her children were born. She intended to make it in NYC, but her research led her to Ohio where she discovered Emilio Amigo, a psychologist working with autistic children. The US TV rights for How to Dance in Ohio were acquired by HBO Documentary Films. The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and appeared on HBO later that year.