Dream, Girl documentary: From Waterloo to the White House and back

Komal Minhas, who was invited to screen her new documentary Dream, Girl at a White House event and later invited to speak at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France - is returning to Waterloo for an exclusive screening of her documentary about female entrepreneurs.

“I am so excited to bring this film to my alma mater and to share our journey of creating Dream, Girl over the past two years since graduation,” said Minhas, who received a graduate diploma from Waterloo's School of Environment, Enterprise and Development. “Coming from a university so committed to gender equality, and with such a strong focus on innovation and business, it’s a natural fit to bring this documentary to campus and our alumni.”

Register for Dream, Girl documentary screenings

The University of Waterloo community can register for two upcoming exclusive screenings:

• Friday, November 4 screening at the Theatre of the Humanities in the J.G. Hagey Hall of the Humanities
• Monday, November 7 screening at the TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto

Dream, Girl has been making waves around the world. It was selected by the White House Council on Women and Girls for a special screening with the First Lady. In addition to the Cannes Film Festival invitation, the Huffington Post named Dream, Girl the number one “Feminist Documentaries That You Need to See Right Now.” Minha, who co-produced the film was also named to Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, a list of extraordinary individuals creating social impact and inspiring others.

Dream, Girl showcases the struggles and triumphs of ambitious female entrepreneurs, including Minhas herself who founded KoMedia at the age of 23.

Attracted to storytelling since childhood, Minhas studied journalism at Carleton University. She knew however, even before graduating, traditional journalism wasn’t for her.

“Being a minority and a woman in a northern Canadian community, and as a first-generation Canadian, all conspired to help me realize my privilege and understand that the circumstances I was born into are not available to hundreds of millions of women around the world,” Minhas said. “I was seeing so much injustice on a daily basis, I knew in my heart it was something I was going to be called to do.”

Waterloo alumnus launches film production company

After completing a graduate diploma in social innovation at Waterloo, Minhas worked at a social innovation hub in Ottawa before realizing she wanted to be an entrepreneur and founded KoMedia, a full-service one-woman production company dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls around the world.

Komal’s world would take another turn when she came across a Kickstarter campaign for Dream, Girl:

“I clicked through and watched the trailer and I was hooked,” she says. “It was an immediate full body reaction. I saw the women on the screen, I saw their stories . . . and all of it was just 100% yesses in my body. This is something I have to do. This is my story on screen.”

She contacted Erin Bagwell, the film's director, and offered to help in any way she could.

Dream, Girl co-producers travel the world

Two years later, Minhas and Bagwell are an unstoppable team. Minhas became Dream, Girl’s co-producer and the pair are traveling the world screening the film through a community-based distribution model.

“It’s been a non-stop full-throttle ride,” she laughs. “We’d like to create a Dream, Girl fund to invest in female film-makers and entrepreneurs,” she says. “I’m also really excited to write a book about this experience.”

And if that weren’t enough, the pair will be filming their next documentary in 3-5 years. While she is keeping the topic quiet for now, it will undoubtedly be aligned with the social values that have shaped her life so far.

“It’s so important to me to use this one glorious life that I have to make an impact, and there’s no better way that I can see to do that than to advance the lives of women and girls,” said Minhas.