The Cheez that Binds Us

In the summer of 2019, I traveled to the Reggio-Emilia province of Northern Italy on a grant I received from the HAND Foundation to film a documentary about the Punjabi Sikh immigrants making UNESCO-designated Parmigiano Reggiano. Having immigrated to India in the late 1900s, these Punjabi-Italians have settled in Italy, built families, and have migrated from working in dairy farms to the cheese factories. While in Italy, I interviewed and followed these dairy farmers starting their agricultural days at 4 am, factory workers who led me through the process of making the cheese, Italian locals who frequently buy the cheese and have fruitfully lived together with their Punjabi immigrant neighbors, an Italian historian with an expertise in the Punjabi diaspora to Italy, an Italian farm owner, members of the local Gurudwara in Novellara, the Mayor of Novellara, and just about anyone else who had a story to tell. I returned to the United States and edited the film at Chapman University under the guidance of the humble and brilliant Hansjeet Duggal, and the film premiered in the fall of 2019 at the SikhLens Film Festival in Orange County before touring worldwide in Pakistan, India, and London.