We never see the fancy schools with the blazers and ties in films about Africa! But, in fact, we too have class and elitism. – Mira Nair
I am Indian, and my home is Kampala. My world is already diverse. But films are financed by those who want to see themselves on screen, and it is a white male world. Still, it does feel like America is waking up. Let’s hope it’s the start of an avalanche. – Mira Nair
They say now in America that final cut doesn’t mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, ‘You can have final cut. I’ll open your film in Arkansas.’ – Mira Nair
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 stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures. – Mira Nair
Making films is about having absolute and foolish confidence; the challenge for all of us is to have the heart of a poet and the skin of an elephant. – Mira Nair
Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before. – Mira Nair
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. – Mira Nair
I know what it’s like to be in one place and dream of another. I also know what it’s like to feel that nostalgia is a fairly useless thing because it is stasis. – Mira Nair
Americans are not used to being bombed in their beds, but if you come from anywhere outside America, it’s not highly unusual. – Mira Nair
‘No words – action’ was the lesson my mother taught me: as artists, we have the privilege of holding a mirror to the world, to engage, to question, to bring beauty to a complex universe. – Mira Nair
To make films, you have to have something to say. To have something to say, you have to be a student of life. And to be a student of life, you have to be feeding yourself with what life, politics, society, and your family fuels you with. – Mira Nair
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. – Mira Nair
From Vietnam’s ‘Deer Hunter’ to Iraq, films are never about the person who has had his house destroyed. – Mira Nair
Sitting in America, we never get to know the other side in any kind of believable way. We have so many movies about Iraq, Afghanistan, and this and that, but there is never a character from that side. – Mira Nair