To make films, you have to have something to say. To have something to say, you have to be a student of life. And to be a student of life, you have to be feeding yourself with what life, politics, society, and your family fuels you with.
Interpretation
Creating films requires deep life understanding and learning from various aspects of existence.
This quote by Mira Nair emphasizes the interconnectedness between filmmaking and life experiences. To create meaningful films, one must not only have a message but also engage deeply with the world around them, drawing from diverse influences such as personal experiences, societal issues, and family dynamics. This continuous learning and openness to life’s lessons are what fuel authentic creative expression.
In practice
During a film class, a professor could use this quote to inspire students to find meaning in their life experiences.
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.
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.
If we don't tell our own stories, no one else will.
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.
Every film is a political act; it's how you see the world.
It's probably why I'm a short story writer. I tend to remember things in the past in narrative form, in story form, and I grew up around people who told stories all the time.
I am in the mood to dissolve in the sky.
Know what your characters want, know what they need most, know what they fear most, and don't be fearful of facing it, no matter how unpleasant it may be.
Copy, art, and typography should be seen as a living entity; each element integrally related, in harmony with the whole, and essential to the execution of an idea.
A playwright lives in an occupied country. And if you can't live that way you don't stay.
My father was a painter and he taught art. He once said to me, 'I never knew an Indian child who could not draw.'
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.