the world my first feature film salaam bombay in 1988 grew out of my documentary roots i worked with and trained street children in film acting so i could accurately portray their reality in my film i also wanted salaam bombay to have a mix of street kids with known and unknown actors like irrfan khan it was his first role in any film raghubir yadav nana patekar and anita kanwar these great actors blended in with what people called nonactorsmississippi masalamississippi masala 1991 it was a radical film then and it is a radical film nownairs has been sharing pics on her social media from the premiere of mississippi masala from the 59th new york film festival nyff besides the film will also get a theatrical rerelease in the us and across the world mira nair attended the mississippi masala screening during the 59th new york film festivaltalking about it she said that she has always been attracted to the stories of those who are considered marginalised she said if you are not in the mainstream or if you are not in any stream at all you are virtually invisible in our society i am very much about telling stories about those who are my own we are important in our skin in our colour in our language and in our poetry when we break the isolation of people when we realise our frailties and our struggles are as important as the other that is the point of art for me i followed salaam bombay with my second film mississippi masala 1991 starring denzel washington and sarita choudhary which is getting its 30thanniversary rerelease this saturday across the us and then the world it was about the racism in our indian community both abroad and at home and the status that we give to the fair considering them to be beautiful and black being ugly the questioning of black and brown lives together in the form of an extraordinary interracial romance which sooni taraporevala wrote to an idea that i had of being brown between white and black i call it a hierarchy of colours this was a radical film then brown and black faces had never been seen together in a frame leave alone falling in love i was attacked soundly by members of the indian community here us but it is a film that lives on it is a film that must be seen by generations of people who missed it because it is still radical for having black and brown faces in a frame and because it celebrates both our commonalities and differencesmonsoon wedding monsoon wedding 2001 wed all seen hum aapke hain kaun but nothing that resembled a punjabi wedding in delhinair said that mississippi masala led her to make an experimental film years later monsoon wedding 2001 nair who had wanted to make a punjabi wedding film in delhi said i made this film largely with members