Mina (Sarita Choudhury) was born and raised in Uganda until the age of six, when dictator Idi Amin decided to expel all Asians. Mina and her family eventually end up in a small town in Mississippi. Mina works in an Indian-owned motel while her mother runs a liquor store and her father continues to battle the Ugandan government for their lost property. Mina eventually meets a carpet cleaner, Demetrus (Denzel Washington), whom she falls in love with. When their romance is discovered by their respective families, it sets off a confrontation between the two ethnic groups. Filmmaker Mira Nair is planning to re-release this 1991 `Mississippi Masala` film as an anthem for the United States Vice Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
At the launch of the Tribeca Chanel women’s filmmaker program, Through Her Lens, Mira Nair delivered a speech reflecting on her journey from India to Hollywood that began with her 1991 film ‘Mississippi Masala’, according to a newspaper. Nair revealed that she is tracking down the negatives for re release as “an anthem for Kamala Harris” for her vice-presidential candidate. Harris is the daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, added The Hollywood Reporter. “When Mississippi Masala [opened], there were lines around the block of interracial couples from everywhere who wanted to see … people who looked like themselves on screen,” she said during the afternoon tea, which featured remarks from Tribeca’s Jane Rosenthal and Paula Weinstein and appearances by the likes of Emilia Clarke, Glenn Close and Angela Bassett. “Three decades later, it continues to speak the truth.”
