New Delhi: Indian film maker Mira Nair bagged the prestigious Jeff Skoll Award for Impact Media at the 45th Toronto International Film Festival Tribute Award ceremony held on Monday. Mira’s six part television series Suitable Boy will close the Festival on Saturday.
Nair was one of six recipients of the TIFF Tribute Awards alongside octogenarian actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet, Chinese-American filmmaker Chloe Zhao (whose Venice Golden Lion-winning Nomadland is one of the highlights of TIFF 2020), indigenous Canadian director Tracey Deer and musician Terence Blanchard.
Mira Nair,in her acceptance speech, said: When I work, it feels like fun, so I really want to thank the Toronto International Film Festival for giving me an award to have my fun and to be part of the extraordinary privilege of being able to make cinema.
“I have often said if we don’t tell our own stories no one else will. But it doesn’t stop there. In telling these stories, I have also discovered the power of listening, of the possibility of making bridges, the possibility of translation, of being porous.”
The award tells me, Nair said, that my art and my films have actually made change. That is such a beautiful feeling, she added.
The TIFF Tribute Awards is an annual fundraiser held as part of the festival that is regarded as one of the most important launching pads for cinema and a bellwether for the Oscars. The awards honour the film industry’s outstanding contributors and their achievements.
