Meet Mira Nair, NYC Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani's Mother Who Is A Celebrated Filmmaker

When Zohran Kwame Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City, much of the attention centered on him becoming the first Muslim and one of the youngest mayors in the city’s history. But long before he entered politics, Zohran Mamdani's mother, Mira Nair, was already a celebrated name in world cinema. Today, at 68, she is considered one of the most accomplished filmmakers of her generation, known for many critically acclaimed and commercially successful films.

After son Zohran’s historic victory in the NYC mayoral polls, Mira Nair started trending on social media on Wednesday. The Indian-American filmmaker’s heartfelt message sharing the proud moment after her son’s victory also went viral.

Mira Nair was born on Oct. 15, 1957, in Rourkela, Odisha. She attended Delhi University and later Harvard University. A course at MIT enabled her to switch from acting to documentary filmmaking, and in 1989, she established her production company, Mirabai Films.

Nair’s breakthrough came in 1988 with Salaam Bombay!, a hard-hitting tale of Mumbai’s street children. It won the Camera d’Or at Cannes and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. After its success, she founded Salaam Baalak Trust, a nonprofit that continues to work for street children in Delhi and Mumbai.

Mira Nair’s storytelling has always crossed cultures and borders. Mississippi Masala, her 1991 film, explored the romance between a Black American man and an Indian-Ugandan woman. It starred Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury. The movie won the Best Original Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival. According to a report in Fortune, it was during the research for this film in Uganda that Mira Nair met her husband and Zohran's father, political scientist Mahmood Mamdani.

The most significant commercial success of Mira Nair came with Monsoon Wedding in 2001. Shot with handheld cameras in a record 30 days on a budget of about $1.5 million, the film grossed in excess of $30 million worldwide, in addition to bagging the Golden Lion at Venice. This made Nair the first woman director to receive the festival’s top prize. The international response to Monsoon Wedding showed Mira Nair’s ability to transcend cultures and reach varied audiences across markets.

Across four decades, Nair has continued to work across genres and budgets. Her filmography includes Vanity Fair (2004) starring Reese Witherspoon, The Namesake (2006) based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, and Disney’s Queen of Katwe (2016) starring Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo. Zohran Mamdani had, in fact, served as music supervisor on Queen of Katwe.

Mira Nair famously turned down a big opportunity with Warner Bros. to direct Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Instead, she chose to work on The Namesake. During the 2018 Jaipur Literature Festival, she said her then-14-year-old son, Zohran, helped her make the decision, according to the Fortune report.

In 2012, the Indian government awarded Mira Nair the Padma Bhushan, the country’s third-highest civilian honour. Over the years, she has received two Academy Award nominations, two BAFTA Award nominations and has won top prizes at both Cannes and Venice.

Today, Nair continues to revisit the worlds she created. She has been working on a theatrical adaptation of Monsoon Wedding as a musical, another chapter in a career defined by crossing boundaries and creating space for new narratives.