The film Monsoon Wedding was almost X-rayed out of existence by airport security, but the damage turned out to be a blessing in disguise director Mira Nair tells STEVE PRATT

THE call that director Mira Nair received on the last day of shooting her feature film Monsoon Wedding told her the last thing she wanted to hear. She was informed that 300 minutes of exposed film had been ruined after suffering X-ray damage at New York airport.

"It was a freak accident," she says, although that can't have been much comfort faced with trying to salvage Monsoon Wedding, a large cast ensemble drama she'd filmed in Delhi.

Because the film was made on a low budget, she'd had to use ingenious methods to get it made at all. For a major party scene, she borrowed a garden and pool from a friend for the evening as she couldn't afford to build big sets.

Bollywood's top choreographer was hired to stage the dance number that's a big part of the party scene. That was among the damaged film. Happily, the insurers and the latest technology came to the rescue of the project.

"This dance number had to be digitially restored because there was no way we could stage it again. The cost of doing the digital restoration of that one scene was as much as the whole film had cost," says Nair.

"We had to go back to India three months later to re-shoot the other scenes we'd lost. By now, we had made them clearer and sharper by looking at the screenplay and seeing what was needed."

One advantage was being able to use fake rain for scenes taking place during the monsoon. "The previous budget only allowed me one lot of rain. We had to film the others in the real monsoon," she explains.

"When we went back, I could slap rain into everything and make it look like a big, opulent monsoon wedding instead of a small independent flick. The insurance bought the rain. You have to take a challenge and make it better."

This hiccup hasn't affected Monsoon Wedding's chances of success. It took the top prize at the Venice Film Festival - the first time a woman had won it - and now has been nominated for a Golden Globe in the US. An Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category can't be far behind.

Nair is as surprised as anyone at how a small film has become a big movie. "It's amazing what's happened. The film was made in this belief that you don't think of the fruits of reaction. It was really about the act of making it," she says.

The world premiere in Venice proved the most extraordinary evening of her life. "They didn't stop dancing and clapping for 20 minutes. We Punjab-ised Venice with banghra until four in the morning. That in itself was extraordinary. I didn't expect to win serious prizes," she says.

"When the film was showing at the London Film Festival, I popped in to watch a little bit and didn't want to leave. There's enjoyment in almost every frame. I always cringe sometimes at my films, but here I don't. I am smiling from start to finish."

The film juggles several dozen characters and five storylines against the background of a Delhi family organising a wedding. The style is American rather than Indian, although the musical numbers were influenced by Bollywood movies. She was keen to show both old and new, rich and poor India on screen.

The tone reflects Nair's background - born in a small town in India, educated at Harvard in America, and with homes in both countries. The film had her biggest opening in her homeland, in contrast to her last film Kama Sutra: A Tale Of Love, which ran into trouble with the censors.

She's had offers to work in Bollywood and, while welcoming being embraced by colleagues, says she doesn't need them. Nair - whose first film, Salaam Bombay! was Oscar-nominated - has just completed a totally American feature, Hysterical Blindness, with Uma Thurman and Gena Rowlands.

"I have been offered some big studio projects from the top boys in Hollywood, and one of them I really like and want to do," she says.

"At the same time, I have my own rather ambitious idea set in India and New York, which a lot of people are interested in financing. I'm fundamentally an independent and also believe if we don't tell our own stories, no one else will. There's the dilemma: what should I do?".

l Monsoon Wedding (15) is showing now in cinemas around the region