Mira Nair

Mira Nair came to international prominence with a successful first feature Salaam Bombay! (1988). She had begun her career as a documentary maker and brought the immediacy of that genre to her debut, which focused on a group of street kids forging a meager existence on the streets of Mumbai. The film’s success meant Nair was able to secure a high-profile cast, including Denzel Washington, for her next outing, Mississippi Masala (1991). Both this film and the subsequent The Perez Family (1995) engaged with issues facing immigrants to the United States and their attempts to find acceptance. The former is concerned with an Indian expelled from Uganda, and the latter with Cuban refugees settling in Miami.

Following critical indifference to Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Nair returned to her ongoing interest in the South Asian diaspora, beginning with the TV movie My Own Country (1998). Her focus perhaps found its most potent expression in her best-known film, Monsoon Wedding (2001). A huge worldwide success, it tells the story of a middle-class Delhi family who return to their native city from across the globe for a wedding.

With a clear desire to avoid stereotyping, Nair followed the success of Monsoon Wedding with the classic literary adaptation of William Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair (2004). Despite once again attracting an impressive cast, including Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp, the film was not a major success. Nair returned to more familiar material with The Namesake (2006), a film that relates the struggle of the son of Indian immigrants to fit into New York life without losing sight of his traditional ways. Nair’s career so far reveals a director who, perhaps more than any other working today, can be best described as transnational.