Thoughts from the committee
A swooning romance set across the cultural divides of Indian and African American communities in the American South of the 90s, Mississippi Masala is a true crowd-pleaser.
An already super-confident young Denzel Washington and a luminous Sarita Choudhury in her first role bring masses of charm and charisma to this thoughtful, funny and sexy romance set in the melting pot of Mississippi. Choudhury plays Mina, a young Indian woman who was born in Uganda and lived there until Idi Amin’s expulsion of Asian migrants forced her family to settle in Greenwood, Mississippi. One day, she crashes (quite literally) into Demetrius, a local carpet cleaner. What ensues is a romance across cultures in the sweltering Southern summer. More than just a contemporary Romeo and Juliet fable, though, Mississippi Masala is grounded in the everyday drama of young people reckoning with cultural dislocation, migrant history, racism, and generational divides.
The film was inspired by director Mira Nair’s own journey to the American South where she discovered the large community of Indian motel owners, many of whom had come to America via Uganda. She conducted hours of research into the stories of these families – their journeys across the world and their cultural realities living in the South. This research sets up a rare gem of a romance, which manages to be both swooning and grounded, as sexy as it is political.
“Three decades later, it speaks to a new generation as groundbreaking filmic heritage—but also with an almost eerie, prophetic wisdom for how to live beyond the confinements of identity and color.” – Bilal Qureshi, Criterion