Inductees include composer Elliott Goldenthal.
By Sujeet Rajan
NEW YORK: Filmmaker Mira Nair will be inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Hall of Fame on April 23rd, along with author and co-director of the Acquavella Gallery Michael Findlay, composer Elliot Goldenthal, and visual artist Fred Wilson.
The event, to take place at Espace in Manhattan, will also feature interactive art by past and current NYFA grantees.
The NYFA Hall of Fame was created to both honor the work of artists to whom NYFA provided critical support early in their careers and recognize philanthropists and patrons of the arts who have had an impact of the City’s cultural community. Past honorees include: Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio; Todd Haynes; Christian Marclay; Kathleen O’Grady; Suzan-Lori Parks; Wendy Perron; Ben Rodriguez-Cubenas, and Andres Serrano.
Nair (NYFA Fellow in Film, 1988), had started out in the theater department acting at Delhi University, but turned to photography and eventually to documentary filmmaking at Harvard.
She made four documentaries about Indian life and society. In 1988, Nair’s first feature film, Salaam Bombay!, won the Camera d’Or for Best First Film at the Cannes Film Festival and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film.
In 2004, Nair launched a film lab called Maisha, based in Uganda as a home for East African and South Asian filmmakers to gather and learn new skills. Her other films include: Monsoon Wedding, Mississippi Masala, The Namesake, Vanity Fair and Amelia; her latest film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, will be released by IFC Films in April.
To contact the editor, e-mail: sujeetrajan@americanbazaaronline.com