Mira Nair
Mira Nair
Mira Nairis an Indian American filmmaker based in New York. Her production company, Mirabai Films, specializes in films for international audiences on Indian society, whether in the economic, social or cultural spheres. Among her best known films are Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, the Golden Lion-winning Monsoon Wedding and Salaam Bombay!, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth15 October 1957
CountryIndia
I wanted to add something that you've never seen about an actress before and this was my chance, and Reese's chance ... to make her a full-blown sensual woman. And to see also that emotional depth, that real range,
Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before.
I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work.
For seven years, I made films in the cinema verite tradition - photographing what was happening without manipulating it. Then I realised I wanted to make things happen for myself, through feature films.
In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't tell our own stories, no one will tell them' is my mantra.
You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us - brown people - were looked at as the 'Others.'
Never treat anything you do as a stepping stone. Do it fully, and follow it completely.
I am an independent film-maker first and foremost. I have always cut my own cloth.
'Salaam Bombay' didn't put a halo on the poor. Instead, it said that they will teach us how to live.
I've loved 'Vanity Fair' since I was 16 years old. You know, we're all colonial hangovers in India, steeped in English literature. It is one of these novels that I read under the covers at my convent boarding school in Simla.
Truth is more peculiar than fiction. Life is really a startling place.
I've never sought to be on an A-list. I've done my own thing and my own thing has thankfully now brought me an audience.
Truth is much stranger than fiction and, often, much more powerful.
What's nice about what we have is when you enter the set, the world of film, it becomes this real cocoon, very different from all the publicity. That's the fun part.