Mira Nair Quotes

My family is almost exactly like the one in 'Monsoon Wedding'. We are very open, fairly liberal, loud people.

It gave me a lot of pleasure and pride that 90 percent of the crew for 'Monsoon Wedding,' and most of my film, are women. We get the work done, you know, much lesser play of ego... And I really believ...

About Author

Mira Nair (IAST: Mīrā Nāyar; born October 15, 1957) is an Indian-American filmmaker. Her production company is Mirabai Films. Among her films are Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, the Golden Lion–winning Monsoon Wedding, and Salaam Bombay!, which received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.

It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching.

I listen to Ustad Vilayat Khan's 'Raga Khamaj' and 'Raga Jaijaiwanti' virtually every morning, a lot of Abdullah Ibrahim, Michael Kiwanuka, Savages, and contemporary Ugandan pop.

We have to realize only in communication, in real knowledge, in real reaching out, can there be an understanding that there's humanity everywhere, and that's what I'm trying to do.

Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game.

You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us - brown people - were looked at as the...

In America, we have so many movies and so much media about the Islamic world, the sub-continental world, but it's not a conversation, it's a monologue. It's always from one point of view. 'If we don't...

Christmas lights may be the loneliest thing for me, especially if you mix them up with reindeers and sleighs. I feel alone. I feel isolated. I feel I do not belong.

I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror...

We have three generations at home, including my father-in-law. I keep a very low profile, and a lot of things I do are very much with the family in mind. I have actually made films with the family aro...

Marriage of attraction is a gamble anyway, so you might as well marry into a family that is similar to your own, and make that much less of an adjustment. But the 'love marriage', as it is called, is...

I think films have to reach people and really grab them. That's what I hope to do when I make a film - to get under your skin and really make you think about something, and have a transporting time th...

With Vietnam, the Iraq War, so many American films about war are almost always from the American point of view. You almost never have a Middle Eastern character by name with a story.

New York City is home to so many people from so many places and the uniqueness of it is that you never feel a foreigner. English is almost hardly ever heard in the subway. In fact, it's weird.

I am at home in many cultures. I live actively in three continents and I've done that for most of my life, so I just make films as I see the world, and that happens to speak to people. I do things tha...

I often begin movies with music in my head it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my...

I love the idea that it doesn't take one person only to achieve your potential. It takes a village, it takes a community, a street, a teacher, a mother.

The dignity of everyday life - the beauty of it, the attitude of it - is what I live around. And it is never on screen, and it is certainly never associated with Africa. If we see Africa at all, it is...

I think, in terms of activism associated with my films, be it 'Salaam Baalak Trust' or 'Maisha,' taking the idea of cinema as a way to change people, I feel heartened. I am glad that we have impacted...