The “Producer” for All Seasons

Across decades and mediums, Mira Nair crafted both a cinematic legacy and a New York city mayor who reflects it

- By Arshia Dhar

It’s been a busy few months for filmmaker-producer Mira Nair. Her son, Zohran Mamdani, a 34-year-old Democrat, recently made history as the first Muslim mayor of New York City, and the youngest one since 1892. Nair hasn’t had a moment to catch her breath — especially since she has already dived headfirst into her next project only days after the poll results were announced. But she isn’t complaining.

The 68-year-old meets The Hollywood Reporter India for a conversation on Zoom in the early hours of a weekday from New York, beaming in a bright yellow kurta, raring to go. “I agreed to do this interview because you said it is on Monsoon Wedding’s 25 years, not Zohran,” she says with an impish laugh, and immediately follows it up with, “No no, I’d be happy to talk about him.”

Her sunny disposition tries very hard but fails to contain her restlessness to go forth and tell another story that matters to her — one that she invests in so deeply that it consumes her like a fever dream.

There are stories Nair believes only she can tell, and perhaps, she’s right. On this day, Nair starts 24 years ago, recounting how she arguably changed the ways in which Indian weddings were captured in the popular imagination. She journeys all the way to the present, to end the story with her son, who, in her words, “has brought the world the gift of hope”.

But of course, it’s just as much her story too — she is, after all, “the producer of the candidate” who has won and captured the popular imagination of today.

Edited excerpt from the conversation.

THR INDIA: Monsoon Wedding is going to turn 25 next year. It made it to The Hollywood Reporter India’s list of the 25 best films of the 21st century. How do you look back at the film and its legacy?

MIRA NAIR: I mean, the