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" It is shocking that the screen does not reflect the way the world is and the diversity in the world... What the world really looks like should be on screen, and it isn't. "

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" You've got to understand that in Bollywood, every actor is an instrument, and yet a human being. They come to the set with a set agenda, believing, 'This is who I am, this is what I want, and no, I am not going to become that character you want me to.' "

Mira Nair

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" Creative freedom is an imperative for me, but it doesn't really exist in a Hollywood game. "

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" 'No words - action' was the lesson my mother taught me: as artists, we have the privilege of holding a mirror to the world, to engage, to question, to bring beauty to a complex universe. "

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" I grew up in a very small town which is remote even by Indian standards. I always dreamed of the world. "

" I came from the school of cinema verite documentaries, which was: Do not manipulate reality as it was happening but create a narrative in the editing room. "

" Middle-class Pakistani cultural life is what I've seen, what I know - they're not all screaming faceless mullahs. It's disturbing that in American films, the character on the other side is not even named. "

" I often begin movies with music in my head; it's a very important dimension to me. Not just the music itself, but how to use music in film: when and how and subtlety. I don't like to be too sweet in my stories, and I like the abrasive clang, the contrasting of sounds and cultures. "

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" I grew up in a small town in India, but through books I knew the world. "

" I think I am kind of put on this Earth to speak of being between worlds in my films. "

" In Uganda, I am surrounded, unfortunately, by evangelicals; I can't bear it. Every night I hear the chants of Baptists urging people to be born again. "

" I started to make my own films, however small and however independent they were, from the beginning. And so, even though I was nobody, I was always the master of my own work. "

" The film itself should interact with the audience. In the case of 'Queen of Katwe', people are laughing, sobbing and dancing. I am taking them on a ride... It is not like I am asking them for handouts. "

" As the director of a film, as the story teller, you have to keep your voice alive. "

" The dignity of everyday life - the beauty of it, the attitude of it - is what I live around. And it is never on screen, and it is certainly never associated with Africa. If we see Africa at all, it is always used as a backdrop: a big blob of a continent rather than a specific street or a country or a place. "

" I look for the humanity in people, however big the politics or oppressive the situation may be, whether it's subsumed within a human being or between two human beings. I want to help us hold a mirror to ourselves. "

" I immediately was captured by 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist.' It gave me a springboard into contemporary Pakistan and a dialogue between Pakistan and the rest of the world. "

" Never take no for answer, and try to make films that turn you on. "

" My family is almost exactly like the one in 'Monsoon Wedding'. We are very open, fairly liberal, loud people. "

" In our house we say 'adolescence' is a western word. We don't believe in it. "

" Every film is a political act; it's how you see the world. "

" I listen to music deeply and seriously for at least an hour or two a day. "

" I grew up thinking anything was possible simply because of seeing women in power - like, you know, running the country. Which is a thought that continues to give Americans indigestion... Direction is about having a vision, but the practice of being a director is a con game - a confidence game. "

" I think there's a level of ignorance, when, in the callowness of youth, you imagine that you are inventing the world for the first time. You imagine that your parents don't know what it feels like to fall in love. "

" I think, in terms of activism associated with my films, be it 'Salaam Baalak Trust' or 'Maisha,' taking the idea of cinema as a way to change people, I feel heartened. I am glad that we have impacted thousands of lives. "

" I am actually a resident of three worlds - of America, of India, and of Africa. I live in Uganda most of the year. It's extraordinary to have that worldview that is an expansive one rather than just looking at the world from where you sit. "

" You know, the sad thing of post-9/11, which was of course horrific, was that the city in which I felt completely at home for two decades, suddenly people like us - brown people - were looked at as the 'Others.' "

" It gave me a lot of pleasure and pride that 90 percent of the crew for 'Monsoon Wedding,' and most of my film, are women. We get the work done, you know, much lesser play of ego... And I really believe in harmony, I believe in working in a spirit of egolessness and that the film is bigger than all of us. "

" Either you're this, or you're that: either you're - if you're a Pakistani, you're a terrorist; if you're an American, you might be a militarist. Those kind of prisms that we see each other through are really stultifying, and they don't often show the complexity and the incredible warmth and encompassing of the world. "

" Post 9/11, so much has changed in New York that it does not give you that homely feeling which it did before. "

" The film-school mantra is that if you don't tell your own stories, nobody will. "