ITALY: INDIAN FEMALE DIRECTOR MIRA NAIR'S FILM 'MONSOON WEDDING' SCOOPS THE GOLDEN LION AWARD AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

Record ID: 392010

  • Title: ITALY: INDIAN FEMALE DIRECTOR MIRA NAIR'S FILM 'MONSOON WEDDING' SCOOPS THE GOLDEN LION AWARD AT THE VENICE FILM FESTIVAL
  • Date: 8th September 2001
  • Summary: (W8) LIDO, VENICE, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 8, 2001) (REUTERS) SOUNDBITE: (English) MIRA NAIR, DIRECTOR, MONSOON WEDDING, SAYING, "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 because I didn't want to make some b
  • Embargoed: 23rd September 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LIDO, VENICE, ITALY
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA1HCZQUMZI2OTP56GFN9RCXMUW
  • Story Text: Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding has scooped the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, making the Indian director the first woman ever in the festival's 58 year history to win the top prize.
    Directed by Mira Nair, maker of the 1988 Oscar-nominated "Salaam Bombay", the film, 'Monsoon Wedding', is part social documentary, part dramatic comedy, tackling issues such as incest as a Punjabi family reunites from around the world for the wedding.
    It was the first time India or a woman had won the top prize at the world's oldest film festival.
    Recognised worldwide for provocative movies such as "Mississippi Masala" and "Kamasutra: A Tale of Love", Nair was described as a "visionary" by the head of the jury, Cannes winner Nanni Moretti.
    Nair, who was educated in New Delhi and went to the United States on a theatre scholarship to Harvard, said the film was a "love song to Delhi" which sought to praise the Punjabi community while examining its dark side.
    Long suppressed revelations of incest in the family mar the build up to the exuberant wedding -- but still Nair said she wanted to show that Punjabi people are just like Neapolitans in Italy -- "loud, aggressive, individualistic and with a huge appetite for living".
    The film, shot on a hand-held camera to give it more of the feel of a documentary, received warm reviews from critics and audiences but was not one of the two films hotly tipped by a group of 15 newspaper and magazine critics to win.
    "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 because 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," she said.
    The jury's runner-up award went to Austrian director Ulrich Seidl for his study of love and sexual longing during a hot and violent summer "Hundstage" ("Dog Days"), another outsider.
    But one of the favourites, "Raye Makhfi" ("The Secret Ballot"), did not go home empty handed, with Iranian Babak Payami winning the Best Director award for his story of a voting box which suddenly falls out of the sky on an Iranian election day.
    The Best Screenplay award went to audience favourite "Y Tu Mama Tambien" ("Your Mother Too") by Mexican writer/director Alfonso Cuaron.
    And his film, about two 17-year-old boys who seduce an older woman, also garnered awards for the two young stars, Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, who shared the Marcello Mastroianni Award for best young actor or actress.
    The Best Actor and Actress awards both went to Italians, the co-stars of Giuseppe Piccioni's "Luce dei miei Occhi"

    ("Light of my Eyes"), Luigi lo Cascio and Sandra Ceccarelli.
    The awards round off a hectic 10 days on Venice's Lido, which has been overrun by Hollywood stars from Nicole Kidman to Denzel Washington, Charlize Theron, Heather Graham and Johnny Depp.
    While the festival was criticised for the quality of some of the films in competition, audience numbers were up hugely -- by around 60 percent -- and the festival director said more cinemas may have to be built for future festivals.
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