Ties with Russia and love for Tarkovsky: the mother of the new mayor of New York is full of surprises

The mother of Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York, the American film director Mira Nair was in Russia. She headed the jury of the film festival in St. Petersburg "Message to man" in 2013, drew the attention of the telegram channel Daily Storm.

"In the course of communication with journalists, she said that she was most impressed by the paintings of Andrei Tarkovsky. In particular, the film "Ivanov's Childhood" prompted Nair to familiarize himself with the rest of the director's filmography," the publication says.

She also watched Pavel Lungin's work Taxi Blues (1990), which she didn't really like, as well as Andrei Konchalovsky's debut painting The First Teacher (1965).

In addition, in 1990 on At the International Cannes Film Festival, she personally met the legendary Russian director Alexei German Sr., they were both on the jury of the screening. She considered the director of the legendary paintings "My Friend Ivan Lapshin" and "Twenty Days without War" to be a "nomenclature director", whom "the disintegrating Soviet government sent to Cannes, so that Russian cinema will not be left without prizes."

Mira Nair was born in 1957 in Punjab (India). At the age of 19, she moved to the United States and began her studies at Harvard. Her debut feature film "Salam, Bombay" (1988) brought her worldwide recognition. In 1991, she married academician Mahmoud Mamdani, whom she met during the filming of the film in Uganda. The filmography of the director has 16 paintings, the last of which is "The Queen of Katve" was released in 2016.

As EADaily reported, the 34-year-old native of Uganda, Zohran Mamdani, who won the New York mayoral election, will take up his duties on January 1, 2026 after taking the oath of office.

Mamdani, who became the first Muslim mayor of New York, positions himself as a "democratic socialist" and opposes Israel, accusing it of genocide of Palestinians. In New York, he promises to open stores with cheap products, freeze rental prices for some housing in the city and abolish bus fares.

According to the city election commission, the turnout in the elections exceeded 2 million people for the first time since 1969.