Acclaimed film director/writer/producer Mira Nair will give the Winton J. Tolles Lecture at Hamilton College on Sunday, April 16, at 7 p.m. in K.J. Auditorium. "Between Two Worlds: An Evening With Mira Nair" is free and open to the public. In addition, her film "Monsoon Wedding" will be screened that day at 2 p.m. in K.J. Auditorium, followed by a question and answer session with Nair.
The Tolles Lecture was established in 1991 by members of the class of 1951 in memory of Winton Tolles, class of 1928 and dean of the college from 1947 to 1972. It brings to the campus distinguished writers in the fields of literature, journalism and theater to lecture and meet with students.
Nair was born in India and educated at both Delhi University and Harvard University. She began her artistic career as an actor before turning her attention to documentary film. In 1988, Nair's debut feature, Salaam Bombay!, was nominated for an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Language Film. It also won the Camera D'Or (for best first feature) and the Prix du Publique (for most popular entry) at the Cannes Film Festival as well as 25 other international awards.
Nair's next film, Mississippi Masala, won three awards at the Venice Film Festival including Best Screenplay and The Audience Choice Award. Subsequent films include The Perez Family and the Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, which she directed and co-wrote.
In 1988 Nair directed My Own Country, based on Dr. Abraham Verghese's best-selling memoir about a young immigrant doctor dealing with the AIDS epidemic.
Nair returned to the documentary form in 1999 with The Laughing Club of India, which was awarded The Special Jury Prize in the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels 2000.
In the summer of 2000, Nair shot Monsoon Wedding in 30 days, a story of a Punjabi wedding. The film opened to tremendous critical acclaim and commercial success and went on to win the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Film Festival and receive Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations for Best Foreign Language Film.
Nair's next film, Hysterical Blindness, set in working class New Jersey in 1987, gave HBO its highest original film ratings in three years.
Following the events of September 11, 2001, Nair joined a group of 11 renowned filmmakers, each commissioned to direct a film that was 11 minutes, 9 seconds and one frame long. Nair's film is a retelling of real events in the life of the Hamdani family in Queens, whose eldest son was missing after September 11, and was then accused by the media of being a terrorist. 11.09.01 is the true story of a mother's search for her son who did not return home on that fateful day.
Nair was appointed as the mentor in film by the prestigious Rolex Protégé Arts Initiative to help guide young artists in critical stages of their development. She is slated to produce and direct several projects in the next year, including Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake (currently in post-production) and a Hollywood remake of the Bollywood blockbuster, Munnabhai, MBBS. In addition, Mirabai Films has established an annual filmmaker's laboratory, Maisha, which is dedicated to the support of visionary screenwriters and directors in East Africa and South Asia. The first lab, which will focus on screenwriting, was launched in August 2005 in Kampala, Uganda.
The lecture and film are sponsored by the Mary and Elihu Root Faculty Innovation Fund and the Dean of Faculty's Office.
