We were lucky to catch up with Maryam Remtulla recently and have shared our conversation below.

Maryam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I would say I learned how to do what I do in a real “trial by fire” sort of approach. I started working on music video sets in 2017 as a production assistant with no real knowledge of what making a film really meant. In a few years time, I had produced countless projects ranging from short documentaries to feature -length horror films. Through constant exposure I soaked up everything like a sponge. No day on set is the same, and everyday I learned something new, or a new way to approach a problem, so putting myself in as many different film environments as possible gave the insight and skills required to excel as a producer across the industry. But, a large portion of excelling in any industry is networking, and it’s hard to network if you’re burned out from working 18 hours days time and time again. So if I were to go back, I would tell myself that field experience is super important, but also to save some strength to get to know the other resources out there and spend more time doing the classic networking.

Maryam, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Maryam Remtulla. I’m a filmmaker and producer based out of Toronto, Canada and I’ve been working in the film industry for the last seven years.

I’ve always had a deep love of storytelling. Whether is was telling, listening or creating, it was the thing that made me feel most human, and part of something bigger than myself. As a youngin, I loved any and all art forms, but my favourite was being on stage. I have always felt most inspired by projects with socially conscious undertones. This love, and this passion, led me to major in drama at a performing arts secondary school where I also discovered my passion for filmmaking and this eventually lead me to a program at Queen’s University called “Stage and Screen”. It was a program that combined my interests in theatre and film together and allowed me to explore the many different realms of both of the industries. From there I got involved with film festivals as well as working on actual film sets outside of school. After graduating I began working right away as a producer and really entered my “trial by fire” era which I talk about in another part of this interview. I started off in the documentary world, which was incredibly impactful and continued to fuel my need for telling stories. Since then, I’ve gone on to produce dozens of short documentaries, advertisements and educational series. During the pandemic, I decided it was time to finally take the leap into narrative filmmaking and have been producing in both fields ever since.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the most important lessons I had to unlearn was the idea that I needed to take responsibility for everything and control every aspect of a project I took on. Early on in my career, I heard the phrase “Being a producer is like being a mom to everyone”. This definitely seemed to be true, especially when I started off working for start-up film production companies, and smaller Indie projects. I would wear multiple hats, manage multiple departments, and try my best to predict every potential problem. However, in classic mom fashion, I would often find myself overworked and spread too thin with little time to focus on my main tasks at hand. As I moved farther along in my career, I realized that this habit of trying to do everything myself, and look out for every obstacle was not only unsustainable but also stifling for myself and my team. It took time, but I learned that trusting others with their specialized roles and focusing on the bigger picture was far more effective for what I’d been hired to do. By letting go of the need to control every detail, I was able to foster a more collaborative environment, allowing each team member to bring their expertise to the table, ultimately leading to a stronger, more cohesive production.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

There is a plethora of resources out there for young filmmakers and young creatives. Sometimes they are more hidden, and sometimes you have to ask around a bit, but if you are consistent and enthusiastic they are almost always there. I wish I’d been more confident in my asking for resources in general. I guarantee, if you ask around your community: “Hey, is there a X for people like Y who also do Z?” Someone somewhere will say yes and you’ll be on your way to building up your circle of resources.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @mermmalaid
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryam-remtulla-a7a240108/
• Other: Tiktok – @mermmalaid

Image Credits

Jordan Dawson, Elena Wang and Samantha Falco