Mira Nair recieved the Golden Lion for her much acclaimed film Monsoon Wedding (2001) here. This year the festival has included the filmmaker's latest offering Vanity Fair (starring Reese Witherspoon as Becky Sharp) in competition.
Nair, who has consistently worked out of Bollywood and yet created a classic film within the Bollywood model (in Monsoon Wedding which starred veterans Naseeruddin Shah and Lillete Dubey alongside newcomers Tilotama Shome and Vasundhra Das) is more representative than most of the genre worldwide.
Nair will be in great company for sure, because the new artistic director Marco Muller unveiled a line-up on Thursday, that includes several Hollywood pictures in and out of competition.
To begin with, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks will kick off the 61st edition of the world's oldest film festival (and among the top three European film bonanzas along with Cannes and Berlin) with the new romantic comedy Terminal about a foreigner stranded for nine months in New York's JFK airport.