Born in 1957 in Rourkela, India, Mira Nair studied at Harvard and began as a documentary maker. Salaam Bombay! (1988), about street children in Mumbai and cast with real street kids, won the Caméra d'Or at Cannes and an Oscar nomination. Monsoon Wedding (2001), a joyous comedy of a Punjabi wedding in Delhi, won the Golden Lion at Venice. Her films often deal with the Indian diaspora, as in The Namesake (2006), and with outsiders. She also founded Maisha, a film lab in Uganda, and directed Queen of Katwe (2016).
Filmography
- Salaam Bombay! (1988)
- Mississippi Masala (1991)
- Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
- Monsoon Wedding (2001)
- Vanity Fair (2004)
- The Namesake (2006)
- Amelia (2009)
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012)
- Queen of Katwe (2016)