Prashant Nair

Prashant Nair
Nair at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2015
Born	Chandigarh, India
Occupation	Film director & screenwriter
Years active	2011-present

Prashant Nair is an Indian-born, French film director, screenwriter and producer best known for his 2015 feature film Umrika, starring Suraj Sharma and Tony Revolori.

Nair started his film career in 2012 when his micro-budget Indian film, Delhi in a Day released to critical acclaim. He later wrote and directed Umrika, which premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival and won the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award

Nair was born in Chandigarh, India to diplomat parents but was raised in Europe, Africa and Asia before going on to live and work in New York, Paris, Prague, Berlin and Mumbai. He credits his constant moving and exposure to different parts of the world as the biggest impact on the subjects of his films. As a result of his upbringing, Nair is fluent in English, French and Hindi and has studied Italian, German and Arabic.

He initially worked as a successful social media entrepreneur well until late 2010 when he first transitioned towards a career in film. His first full-length film was the micro-budget Delhi In A Day which had a limited theatrical release in India in 2012 and was well received by critics, voted one of the top ten independent films of 2012 by Times of India.

His 2015 film, Umrika came as a surprise when it became the only Indian film to ever win an award at the Sundance Film Festival, taking home the World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award. It's European premiere took place at the 2015 Karlovy Vary Film Festival following which the film went on to play at over forty international film festivals, picking up numerous accolades including the HP Bridging the Borders Award at the 2016 Palm Springs International Film Festival and the FIPRESCI Critic's prize at the Cairo International Film Festival 2015.

Shortly after its premiere, theatrical rights of the film were sold by sales agent Beta Cinema to France, Germany, Austria, Australia, South Korea and numerous other territories, making it one of the most widely distributed Indian independent films of all time.

Nair said that the film is "about the mythology of America and, more generally, how cultures perceive each other: the stereotypes, assumptions, misunderstandings and labeling as “exotic” of all things unfamiliar".