Mira Nair

• Focuses on films on Indian society for international audiences
• Women are the center of her films
• Uses actors and non-actors
• Realistic cinematography

Mira Nair is an Indian-American filmmaker who is living in New York City. Nair was originally born in Odisha, India. She accepted a full ride scholarship to Harvard University at the age of 19. While studying at Harvard, she was interested in acting and joined a theater program. At the start of her film-making career, she created documentaries in which she explored traditional Indian cultures. In 1988, she directed and wrote the film, Salaam Bombay!. Despite the film not doing well at the box office, it won 23 international awards including the Camera D’or and Prix du Public at Cannes Film Festival. It was even nominated for at the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Film. After many films that were critically acclaimed, she is now an adjunct professor in the Film Division of the School of Arts at Columbia University.

Mira Nair changes the genre in every film she creates, but she still stays close to her roots. She utilizes both well-known actors and non-actors. Her films are very gritty and and can be uncomfortable for some audiences. With her films, Nair is able to reach international audiences and make people see her world through her eyes. Despite the struggles the characters go through her films, there is a sense of community that people can relate to.

"Over the years, her art, styles and approach have varied but the essence has only rung loud and clear right from the raw kinetic energy of her early documentary films that brought her out to the streets to the high-profile, glossier and untamed depictions of subjects that most directors tend to leave untampered" - Anchita Parna

"By the time it's done with us, Mira Nair's new movie has its audience giddy with the delight of discovery, of having been immersed in a foreign culture only to find that human nature is pretty much the same all over" - Robert W. Butler, Kansas City Star