Mira Nair

Mira Nair (IAST: Mīrā Naiyara; born 15 October 1957) is an Indian American filmmaker. She has received two prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and four from the Venice Film Festival, as well as nominations for an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe, and two César Awards.

Nair began her career making documentaries, but went on to make feature films. She usually directs independent drama films, which she also produces through her company Mirabai Films, and her films often touch on political themes or controversial topics. She made her feature-length directorial debut with Salaam Bombay! (1988), which received Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award nominations. Her next film, Mississippi Masala (1991), was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Film.

Nair has directed films such as Monsoon Wedding (2001), Vanity Fair (2004), The Namesake (2006), and Queen of Katwe (2016). Monsoon Wedding made her the first female director to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best International Feature Film, and held the record for the highest-grossing Indian film in North America until 2017.

Born and raised in India, Nair moved to the U.S. to attend Harvard University, and was married to photographer Mitch Epstein from the early to late 1980s. She then lived for a few years in Uganda with her second husband, political scientist Mahmood Mamdani, but they later returned to the U.S. Their son, Zohran Mamdani, has served as Mayor of New York City since 2026.

Early life

Mira Nair was born in Rourkela on 15 October 1957, the daughter of social worker Praveen Nair and Indian Administrative Service officer Amrit Lal Nair. She has two older brothers named Vikram and Gautam. The family is of Punjabi origin, now settled in Delhi, and is Hindu. The family name "Nayyar" was changed by her grandfather, although one of her uncles continues to use it.

Nair grew up in a "colonial-style bungalow, with [a] spacious veranda and terracotta-tiled floor". Her father, Amrit, was a remote character, who was "not much fun", and her parents later (around 1990) separated, after years of tension and fighting. Nair appreciated Amrit's love of Persian poetry and song, but he drove his children hard, insisting that they "spend their time usefully". He also argued with her brothers, Vikram and Gautam, a lot, but being a girl, Mira was regarded as less important, and was allowed to just get on with doing what interested her. Praveen had a strong influence on the young Mira, particularly her independence, confidence, fearlessness, and social awareness. Nair did not directly challenge her father in the home, but in her early documentary films she attacked many of his attitudes, such as the hypocrisy of male ideas about "virtue" in India Cabaret (1985), and the Indian custom by which female fetuses were often aborted, in Children of Desired Sex (1987).

Nair first attended Ispat English Medium School in Rourkela, from ages 7 to 10, between 1964 and 1967. Her family moved to Bhubaneswar, where she lived until age 18. She attended an English-medium high school at Loreto Convent, Tara Hall in Kaithu, Shimla, where she developed a fondness for English literature.

In her teens, she taught herself to type and play the sitar; painted; wrote poetry and performed in local theatre, and was also an outstanding student.

She studied at Miranda House—a college for women at Delhi University—where she majored in sociology. While at university, she belonged to an amateur drama company in Delhi. There she worked with Indian theatre director Barry John. At university she performed in Equus, Habeas Corpus, and as Cleopatra in Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. She also did political street theatre in Calcutta with the Bengali playwright Badal Sircar.

After turning down the offer of a full scholarship to Cambridge University in England (later saying "I had a chip on my shoulder about the Brits") in 1976, aged 19, she moved to the US to attend Harvard University on a scholarship. She enjoyed acting and continued to perform throughout her first year at Harvard. Her friend and future collaborator Sooni Taraporevala was a classmate at Harvard.

Heading to New York City during the summer break of her first year, she worked with American dramatist Joseph Chaikin and met Judith Malina and Julian Beck, who founded The Living Theatre.

Upon return to Harvard, she was admitted to the department of Visual and Environmental Studies based on her photographic submission. She attended the introductory photography course that was being taught by her future first husband, Mitch Epstein, in 1977, and she did some work for him on his freelance assignments. She, however, then dropped photography, preferring filmmaking. She graduated in 1979.

Career

Before she became a filmmaker, Nair was interested in acting. While in India, she performed in plays written by Badal Sircar, a Bengali dramatist and theatre director. While she studied film at Harvard, Nair also became involved in the theatre program. She won a Boylston Prize for her performance of Jocasta's speech from Seneca's Oedipus.

In 2002 Nair was interviewed by American theatre critic and biographer John Lahr, in which she shared much about her early life and career to this point.

In a 2004 interview with FF2 Media's Jan Huttner, Nair commented on her filmmaking process:

It's all in how I do it. Keeping the bums on the seats is very important to me. It requires that ineffable thing called rhythm and balance in movie-making. Foils have to be created, counter-weights. From the intimacy, let's say, of a love scene to the visceral, jugular quality of war. That shift is something in the editing, how one cuts from the intimate to the epic that keeps you there waiting. The energy propels you.

In an interview with Image Journal in 2017, Nair said that she had chosen directing over any other art form because it was collaborative. She said, "That's why I am neither a photographer nor writer, I like to work with people, and my strength, if any, is that. Working with life."

Documentaries

In her early years, Nair primarily made documentaries in which she explored Indian cultural traditions. For her film thesis at Harvard, between 1978 and 1979, she produced a black-and-white film titled Jama Masjid Street Journal. In the 18-minute film, Nair explored the streets of Old Delhi and had casual conversations with Indian locals, using a Bolex camera. The film's name derives from a Muslim community near the Jama Masjid, a large mosque in Old Delhi.

After Nair graduated and moved to New York, American filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, a pioneer of the cinéma vérité style of documentary filmmaking, liked Jama Masjid Street Journal and helped Nair secure a grant for her next film. Her second documentary, So Far from India (1982), was a 52-minute film that follows an Indian newspaper dealer living in the subways of New York. His pregnant wife waits for him to return home to India. The protagonist, Ashok, slowly becomes estranged from not only his family, but also his Indian heritage. Nair directed So Far from India as a commentary on the life of an immigrant separated from his home and suffering cultural isolation. The film won Best Documentary at the American Film Festival in Wrocław, Poland and New York's Global Village Film Festival.

Her third documentary, India Cabaret, with cinematography by her husband Mitch Epstein, opened the inaugural Indian International Film Festival, in Hyderabad, in 1985. The film was very well received at the festival. It portrays the exploitation of female strippers in Bombay, and follows a customer who regularly visits a local strip club while his wife stays at home. Nair raised roughly $130,000 for the project. The 59-minute film was shot over a span of two months. India Cabaret was widely criticized, primarily by Indian men, who objected to the portrayal of women working as strippers or those who are forced to marry. In New York some opponents tried to block release of the film on WNET. The film was bought by PBS, but then rejected by Channel 13, the network's New York affiliate. Nair's family, especially her father, also criticized it. He said she should not have positively portrayed these women. Nair created India Cabaret to reveal the prejudice shown towards sex workers. Some feminists criticized her for filming these women through the male gaze, due to the sexual nature of the strip clubs. The film received several awards, including the Blue Ribbon award and two awards for Best Documentary.

Children of a Desired Sex (1987) was the fourth documentary Nair directed. Made for Canadian television, this film explored how amniocentesis was being used to determine the sex of fetuses. Additionally, the premise of the film seeks to bring to light the experiences of women who live in a society where there is a large preference towards giving birth to male children. Despite how controversial this topic may be, Nair highlighted the struggle and the dilemma these women go through.