Mira Nair: Telling both sides of the story

What does it take for a filmmaker to pass up the opportunity to direct a film in the world’s highest-grossing franchise?

Just a little conscience — that’s what director Mira Nair will tell you. The acclaimed filmmaker was offered a chance to do a Harry Potter film a few years ago. Instead, she decided to make The Namesake, an adaptation of a bestseller about the struggles of an Indian immigrant family in the US.

“When the Harry Potter offer came, I took it seriously because my son learned to read Harry Potter books,” Nair recalls. “But I thought hard and long about it and one day he said to me: ‘Mama, everyone can make a Harry Potter film but only you can make The Namesake. So that was that. It was a very liberating line from my son.”

It’s hardly surprising though. One look at Nair’s filmography and you’ll realise that in a career spanning more than 30 years, she has tackled an array of issues spanning cultures with complicated human emotions and struggles running as a central theme. Whether it’s the street children of the Oscar-nominated Salaam Bombay! (1988), or the culture clash in Mississippi Masala (1992), the Cuban refugees in The Perez Family (1995) and the raucous Punjabi family in Monsoon Wedding (2001), such human themes are hardly a good place for a special effects-laden box office bait.

“I choose because of my heartbeat. And when certain subjects get my heart to beat faster, and they don’t always do, I really go for it,” she says.

Nair’s latest film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on a book of the same name, opened the Doha Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday.

Like all her other films, she says she was inspired after a trip to Lahore for the first time in 2004.

“My father came from Lahore. We were raised in India singing these songs and learning about the customs, but we never went there. So it was very moving and eye-opening to see this level of refinement you don’t always associate with the Pakistan you read about in newspapers.

“Then a few months later, I read Mohsin Hamid’s novel and I loved it. I also wanted to make the story because it was a dialogue with America. Both these worlds were worlds I knew well. So Mohsin was kind enough to give me the rights and that’s how the ball got rolling.”

Part-thriller, part-drama and a commentary on fundamentalist ideals, the film tells the story of a Pakistani Princeton graduate who is torn between his American dream and the call of his homeland. The film stars Riz Ahmad, Kate Hudson and Kiefer Sutherland along with Indian veterans Shabana Azmi and Om Puri.

Nair, who went to Harvard University when she was 19, says she hopes her film will spur dialogue.

“I am tired of always seeing the story from one point of view and I have always believed that if we do not tell our own stories, no one else will,” she says.

Asked why she picked a story with the 9/11 as backdrop, Nair says now has never been a better time.

“Look at the world today, look at what’s happened in the last decade. This schism that has developed around us, it’s become a wall and I really feel that it’s about time we have this dialogue with the world — we need to bomb that wall.

“Also it’s interesting to make it 10 years after 9/11 because it has given us time for us to pause and reflect and see the terrible impact the last 10 years have had in each of our lives.”

Nair also says her film is targeted at the youth.

“So many youngsters cross borders and cultures all the time. And now, more than before, people are increasingly made to define themselves in terms of who they are and what they represent,” she says.

“I really made [the film] for the world but also for my 21-year-old son Zohran who at 16 was questioned in front of us in immigration and at 18 was taken away to be interrogated. I wanted to make a story for the world to see that essentially, we are all humans, and it’s because we don’t know each other that we react the way we do with each other.”

The Reluctant Fundamentalist opened the Venice International Film Festival in August and has since travelled to festivals in Toronto and London. It is scheduled to release in the US in April next year followed by the rest of the world.

Besides promoting this film, Nair is also working on a Broadway musical based on her critically-acclaimed and commercial hit Monsoon Wedding.

“I’ve been developing it for more than three years now. We have the play written and recorded about six out of 12 songs. It will be a mix of Hindi and English. We start rehearsals in May next year and hope to open maybe in the middle of 2014,” she says.

Nair, whose 2009 film Amelia opened the first Doha Tribeca Film Festival, says bringing her latest project back to Doha is like a homecoming. The Reluctant Fundamentalist is also co-produced by Doha Film Institute (DFI), which owns the festival along with Robert De Niro.

Her film lab Maisha, where she trains aspiring filmmakers, is also partnered with the DFI.

“In fact, we had six Qatari students work in the production of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. If even six people can bring the voices of this place to the world, just imagine how amazing that will be.”