Racialicious Crush Of The Week: Mira Nair
Nair was born and grew up in a middle-class Punjabi household in the Indian state of Orissa as the nation itself was a decade out from the British officially leaving there. She studied sociology at Delhi University as well as participated in political street theater and an amateur acting troupe. She moved to US when she was 19 due to winning a scholarship to Harvard University, where she met Sooni Taraporevala, her longtime screenwriter. She stayed with her sociology studies.
I think Nair brings her sociological training to her films. As intimate as they are–Nair rejected directing Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix because she said she was “better suited to emotions, human beings, and less interested in special effects“–they’re also stories of a group of people moving with, through, and against social structures and relationships and their attendant agreements, be that structure a deal-with-the-devil agreement with a rich benefactor in 19th-century England; marriage, polyamory, and polygamy in 16th-century and 20th-century India; immigration and assimilation in 21st century New York City; kyriarchy among people of color in late 20th-century Mississippi. And her style of intimate group studies have earned her all sorts of accolades and awards, including an Academy Award nod for the film-class standard Salaam Bombay! in 1989 and India’s third highest civilian honor, the Padma Bhushan, in 2012.
And Nair pays the wealth of her filmmaking experience forward: she not only instructs future filmmakers at Columbia University, she also founded Maisha Film Lab, where East Africans and South Asians learn how to make films–the lab’s headquarters is located in Nair’s adopted home of Kampala, Uganda, and has sites in Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania. Nair also took the earnings of Salaam Bombay! and started Salaam Baalak Trust, an organization for India’s homeless children.
I think Maisha Film Labs’ motto sums up Nair’s filmmaking ethos: “If we don’t tell our stories, no one else will!” Including stories of sexy and grown brown folks just trying to make it in this world.
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