“Using Cinema, Driving Change – An Afternoon with Mira Nair”

Art as an agent of change?  Yes, that’s Mira Nair’s goal.  On Sunday, November 20, Mira Nair, acclaimed director, writer, and producer captivated a sold-out audience of almost 200 people as she engaged them on the possibilities of art as a powerful medium to bring about change in society. 

 Mira Nair spoke in the intimate Morse Auditorium at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA as part of the museum’s “Celebrate the Art and Culture of India” series.  The audience was culturally diverse and listened intently to Mira’s eloquent speech.  Mira Nair captured the audience by forcing them to think…to think and ask difficult questions about meaningful matters including the use of art and cinema to foster change in society, the boundaries and stereotypes that exist in this universe, and the post 9-11 world.  Mira shared her sense of curiosity, questioning, and even unrest with her audience … motivating the group to themselves probe the link between art and politics…art and community…could cinema really be a medium of change?

 Never was the answer to this question more clear than in Mira Nair’s short film on the impact of 9/11 on a Muslim family living in New York, which she showed during her speech.  “11.09.01”, a 11-minute documentary-style film so powerfully captured a highly intense but very real situation in the U.S. today that the audience was visibly moved.  The audience was naturally brought to ask themselves the tough questions about the political climate, about human interactions, about community.  “Only those who embrace the world fully will ultimately know themselves”, Mira insightfully pointed out.

She shared her concerns about current portrayals about Iraq and Islam, “Until we tell those stories of the other side, inflexibility will continue because people will never understand what it is like for that to happen to us….anyway that is the main thing that I find myself completely affected by and trying to deal with creatively and politically”.

 Known for her internationally-praised films including Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala, and Monsoon Wedding, Mira has made her mark as an agent of change even beyond the films themselves.  After making Salaam Bombay, she set up the “Salaam Balak (child) Trust” with centers that train and strive to positively influence street children on important principles. As a result, today there are 21 Salaam Balak centers in India enrolling 5,000 children a year.  Recently, Mira has also successfully set up MAISHA (meaning ‘Life’), a Film Laboratory that provides new and local screenwriters and film directors from East Africa and South Asia with access to professional training and resources.  Mira believes and points out, “if we don’t tell our stories, no one else will”.  

 Her ability to creatively enact life --- to bring to picture fiction in such a fashion that one cannot distinguish it from reality …where the emotions are so strongly felt --- this is her true talent.  She traces this ability to capture “real” back to her beginnings as an artist. “Truth is much more powerful and compelling than fiction sometimes”, she points out.  Mira Nair’s initial aspirations were in theater and documentary.  She grew up in a small town, Bhubaneswar, India. “My first inspiration was Jathra or mythological folk theater…I would go when I was 12 years old and see entire universes of emotion and passion unbridled in front of me”. 

 
Mira Nair is a visibly passionate and creative artist.  One can almost see the wheels turning in her head as she speaks and a new idea comes to her.  The audience easily saw her passion and drive come alive in her eyes and understood when Mira said she goes where her heart takes her.  In fact, when approached to direct the latest Harry Potter movie, Mira Nair actually turned them down.  Yes, she decided to follow her heart and instead moved forward and continue with filming “The Namesake” (based on book written by author Jhumpa Lahiri; film expected to release in October, 2006 with a potential showing in Cannes earlier in the year). 

 
“Never do what you do as a stepping stone --- instead do it fully and completely”.  Mira Nair has certainly delivered on this mantra of hers.  Her work has made people more aware of the richness and uniqueness of the Indian culture.  She has shown that art can definitely be a powerful agent of change.  An afternoon with Mira Nair was then the perfect fit for the Peabody Essex Museum’s Special Series and continuing focus on India. 

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