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Mira Nair: Director Mira Nair
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Mira Nair is a Director who was born in India. She came to the United States at the age of 19 years with a scholarship for Harvard. She became a director in 1979 and her latest film is called The Namesake. In this film, Mira is telling a story that links two cultures when people leave their own country for another, fall in love and marry. Their children who are born into the new world, the differences between them and how they believe their parents do not have a place in it. This film is about a 30 year saga in a family, the contrast between the parents traditions and the children born in the United States.
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Mira Nair is a name to reckon with, both in Hollywood and Bollywood. So, when the award-winning director started calling up film stars in Mumbai last year, they were all very excited. The expectation was a role in the $100 million-dollar Hollywood film "Shantaram" that Nair is directing with Johnny Depp and Amitabh Bachchan in the lead.
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Mira Nair, acclaimed director of Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala, and Monsoon Wedding, speaks with WIE about the evolution of culture in a globalized world and the tenacious social resilience—what Nair calls the unique plasticity—of her native India. Her forthcoming feature film, entitled Namesake (scheduled to open in March '07), explores similar themes in a story about shifting identities, ethnic roots, and the restless mixing of Eastern and Western cultures. In this lively conversation, Nair covers a broad range of subjects and experiences, artistically, professionally, and personally. She speaks about her filmmaking career, her life in the West, and her directing plans for the future, which include a film chronicling the eight weeks of spiritual and creative ferment the Beatles experienced in northern India in 1968. You can preview her new film Namesake at Foxsearchlight.com
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Mira Nair, the Indian director, scored an international art-house hit with her feature debut, Salaam Bombay!, a tale of life in the streets of seething urban India. Her next film was a surprising turnabout: Mississippi Masala is a cultural study and a love story set in the rural American south. The love story comes courtesy of Denzel Washington, as a rug cleaner, and Sarita Choudhury (from Nair's Kama Sutra), as the daughter of Indian immigrants running a small-time motel; both give fresh, charming performances. But Nair is equally interested in capturing the feelings of an exile's life, and Roshan Seth, the fine actor who played Nehru in Gandhi, superbly catches the hope and sorrow of dislocation. Although the issues are serious, Nair maintains a breezy, naturalistic approach, and the various ingredients of this masala blend into a rich, flavorful stew. --Robert Horton
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Born in India, Mira Nair was educated at Delhi University and Harvard University. She began her career as a director working on television documentaries before making her feature directorial debut with the Academy Award-nominated foreign language film Salaam Bombay! (1988). It was a big hit at the Montreal World Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize, Most Popular Film and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Nair ... received the Camera d'Or for Best First Feature at the Cannes Film Festival as well as the Audience Award.
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During a tour of the Deep South in 1988, director Mira Nair learned that a number of Indian immigrants were operating motels in the area, an experience which became the inspiration for this lively, seductive tale of interracial romance. Sarita Choudhury stars as Mina, the daughter of previously affluent Indian immigrants who run a motel in Mississippi. When her voluptuous beauty catches the eye of rug-cleaning contractor Demetrius (Denzel Washington), love blossoms, but the lovers' families are less than enthusiastic. While the film centers on a hot romance, it's ... a fascinating study of a unique immigrant community with a richness of detail that borders on the ethnographic, as well as a telling examination of class and status anxiety. The smoldering, sensual attraction between the two leads has such an explosiveness that it's clear they were meant to be together. Yet to her father (Roshan Seth), a former lawyer who still dreams of his beautiful house on a hill in Uganda, this rug man is simply a creature from a lower caste.
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Director Mira Nair