Event

In this lecture, filmmaker Mira Nair will explore India through the lens of her four decades of cinematic work, beginning by tracing her theatre and documentary beginnings and the discovery of cinéma-vérité, leading to her first feature, Salaam Bombay! Cities—often characters in her films—have allowed her to observe India’s transformations, as featured in India Cabaret, one of her early documentaries, features like Salaam Bombay!, Monsoon Wedding, and The Namesake, as well as her recent series, A Suitable Boy. By examining other films—Mississippi Masala, Hysterical Blindness, and Vanity Fair—she will reflect on the East-West criss-crossings that have become a particular staple of her work. She will further discuss how Bollywood has changed over the years, how she has been inspired by and drawn from it, and how her own work was vastly different from what emerged from India at the time. Additionally, she will provide insight on her current projects: Monsoon Wedding the Musical (and the long and peculiar journey toward the making of an original Indian musical, authentic to itself, but firmly rooted in the American musical theater tradition), as well as film projects: AMRI (her upcoming film on Amrita Sher-Gil) as another example of creating art born of East and West, and a feature in development that is a searing tale of class and conflict in contemporary Delhi.