Mira Nair is first Indian to win Golden Lion at Venice
09th Sept 2001
17.00 IST
By IndiaExpress Bureau
Mira Nair became the first Indian and the first woman to win the prestigious Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion, for her film Monsoon Wedding.
A jubilant Mira dedicated the Golden Lion to India, calling her film a love song to Delhi, Mira Nair dedicated the Golden Lion to India. "I am very leased, especially tonight for India. We have a powerful cinema that is known in one half of the world and not in the other half. And this award comes from the other half of the world. It's a matter of great pride and honor to us," she said.
Monsoon Wedding, starring Naseeruddin Shah and Lillete Dubey, is the story of four wet days and nights that lead up to the wedding of the Vermas, a Punjabi couple in Delhi. It is a complex canvas of love, and morality that suggest despite divorce, discord and the pressures of the liberalization age, family ties still nourish the Indian soul.
"I expected nothing from the movie. I just wanted to explore something in a very free way, with very little money, with very little resources, and go back to basics again and explore and use whatever influence I had. I didn't want to make some big deal. I just wanted to make a small thing, which I am so happy to say has become big," said Mira Nair.
Critics have acclaimed it as a film that depicts cosmopolitan India to the western world in a different light.
