Mira Nair

Mira Nair

Mira Nair will direct the crime film, Bengali Detective, for Fox Searchlight. Bengali Detective is based on a documentary directed by Phil Cox, which screened in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. Searchlight acquired the remake rights there.

The story revolves around an intrepid private eye in Kolkata’s criminal underworld whose dream is to dance on Indian television. With this film, Nair will return to her Monsoon Wedding writer, Sabrina Dhawan, while Scott Free and Michael Costigan will be producing it.

Mira Nair first hit the headlines when her 1988 film Salaam Bombay (on the city’s slum children) won the Camera d’Or Prize at Cannes and was subsequently nominated for the foreign language Oscars, one of the three Indian films ever to win this recognition. Winner of the Padma Bhushan, India’s third highest civilian award, she conquered the Venetian lagoons in 2001 when her extremely bold work with a raucous Punjabi wedding as the backdrop clinched the Festival’s top Golden Lion.

Searchlight saw major success with two of its productions set in India, the 2008 Slumdog Millionaire, which grossed over $370 million worldwide, and last year’s The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which topped $130 million.