On September 16, award-winning Director Mira Nair discussed her career during a special evening in the Guild’s New York boardroom hosted by the Eastern Directors Council Focus on Women Committee.
After an introduction from Focus on Women Committee member Sarah Pirozek (Crafty), Nair spoke about her career; her creative process; and her projects in a conversation moderated by Director Dee Rees (Pariah). The discussion was illustrated by clips from her body of work. The evening ended with a Q&A where Nair answered questions from the audience.
Born in India, Nair came to America on a scholarship to study theater at Harvard, but switched to documentary filmmaking upon discovering cinema vérité was a way to capture subjects that got under her skin. She used that passion to make her first feature, Salaam Bombay!, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film.
Nair has almost a dozen features to her credit including Monsoon Wedding, Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, The Perez Family, and Mississippi Masala; the documentaries The Laughing Club of India, Children of Desired Sex and Jama Masjid Street Journal; and the upcoming films The Bengali Detective and The Queen of Katwe. Her 2013 release The Reluctant Fundamentalist was chosen to open the Venice International Film Festival, where she had previously won the Golden Lion for Monsoon Wedding in 2001.
Nair has been a member of the Guild since 2001.
The members of the EDC’s Focus on Women Committee are: Directors Laura Belsey (Co-chair), Tricia Brock, Jan Eliasberg, Rachel Grady, Maggie Greenwald, Annette Haywood-Carter, Nicole Kassell, Linda Laundra, Martha Mitchell, Sarah Pirozek, Rosemary Rodriguez (Co-Chair), Lara Shapiro and Rose Troche.
The Committee would like to remind members that while their events are designed with a special focus on women directors, all DGA members are welcome to attend.