Benaroya Hall Calendar

Seattle Arts & Lectures: Mira Nair

Apr. 28, 2009 7:30 PM

S. Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium


2008-09 Season Lecture Series

This lecture is sponsored in part by:
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Glant Textiles
Stoel Rives, LLP


"I always try to make films about things that get under my skin," says writer, producer, and director Mira Nair. In Salaam Bombay! she exposed the life of street children; in India Cabaret she shed light on prostitution; Mississippi Masala told a story of interracial love; The Perez Family revolved around the emotion of exile. Since 2000, she has directed two blockbuster love stories: Monsoon Wedding, the story of a Punjabi wedding, and The Namesake, an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel; both explored personal history, family, and tradition. In all her work, she has built her stories on carefully composed shots, creating visually stunning and emotionally deep narratives of love and country.

Nair founded Mirabai Films, Inc., in 1989 to "create films that question cultural barriers and depict worlds that are both true to their culture and universal in their appeal." Currently in pre-production on its eighth film, the company has been famously successful, allowing Nair to focus her energy on films of importance to her, as well as on giving young artists a hand on their way up. In an interesting pairing of nonfiction and fiction, in 1998 Nair directed My Own Country based on Dr. Abraham Verghese's best-selling memoir about a young immigrant doctor dealing with the AIDS epidemic, and in January 2007 she directed Migration, one of four short films by acclaimed Indian film directors made to raise awareness about the AIDS epidemic in India. Screened like trailers before big Bollywood films, the shorts have been an important contribution to that public health campaign.

Appointed as the mentor in film by the prestigious Rolex Protégé Arts Initiative, Nair joined fellow mentors Sir Peter Hall, David Hockney, and Mario Vargas Llosa to help guide young artists in critical stages of their development. She has been equally instrumental as a professor in Columbia University's School of the Arts Film Division, and in Kampala, Uganda, where Mirabai Films established an annual filmmaker's laboratory, Maisha, dedicated to the support of visionary screenwriters and directors in East Africa and South Asia. She currently lives in New York City with her husband and son.

(Source: Seattle Arts & Lectures)


Tickets: (206) 621-2230, Lectures.org: $25-50 adult, $10 student/under 25
On-sale Date: Tickets are currently on sale.



OTHER LECTURES IN THIS SERIES:
Richard Russo | Sept. 17
Terry Tempest Williams | Oct. 7
John Updike | Nov. 12
Michael Pollan | Jan. 12
Junot Díaz | Feb. 24