DIRECTOR/PRODUCER: Mira Nair
PRODUCTION CO: Mirabai Films
SCREENPLAY: Sooni Taraporevala
PHOTOGRAPHY: Edward Lachmann
EDITOR: Roberto Silvi
MUSIC: L Subramaniam
WITH: Denzel Washington (Demetrius Williams), Sarita Choudhury (Mina), Sahira Nair (Young Mina), Roshan Seth (Jay), Sharmila Tagore (Kinnu), Charles S Dutton (Tyrone Williams)

​​FESTIVALS: Venice

REVIEWS

 “Twenty years after immigrating with her family to Greenwood, Mississippi, after dictator Idi Amin’s expulsion of Uganda’s Asian population, Mina (Sarita Choudhury) has assimilated to her adoptive home, where she works in the family motel chain — so much so that she thinks nothing of falling in love with a local boy, self-employed carpet-cleaner Demetrius (Denzel Washington). Moving beyond the division between Black and white that’s long defined depictions of the Deep South, Nair’s film depicts an increasingly diverse New South, revealing new discoveries and old resentments. The drama unfolds against a landscape of timeless beauty, the particularities of the dulcet Mississippi light captured by cinematographer Ed Lachman.”

– Metrograph

“As its title suggests, Mississippi Masala is a movie of continuous juxtaposition. The first is a cut from Uganda’s verdant paradise to a Piggly Wiggly’s consumer cornucopia in America. Another follows a flashback to the family’s hilltop villa in Uganda with the mock plantations of wealthy Greenwood. Nair came out of documentary filmmaking, and thanks to Ed Lachman’s vibrant cinematography, in Mississippi Masala the landscapes are also characters.”

– J Hoberman, New York Times

FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Tauranga  
Wednesday, 04 March, 6.00pm

​New Plymouth 
Wednesday, 25 March, 6.00pm

Whanganui
Monday, 11 May, 7.00pm

Dunedin  
Wednesday, 27 May, 7.30pm

​Timaru  
Tuesday, 16 June, 6.30pm

Auckland  
Monday, 29 June, 6.15pm

​Canterbury
Monday, 20 July, 7.00pm

​Wellington     
Monday, 03 August, 6.00pm

Wellington     
Monday, 03 August, 8.30pm

​Nelson  
Wednesday, 16 September, 6.00pm

​Palmerston North
Wednesday, 25 November, 6.00pm
RETRO CLASSICS >>