Award winning film director Mira Nair, is set to shoot a film on Uganda’s Woman Candidate Master Phiona Mutesi, next year in which she will depict her as a player who has come from the slums to become one of the finest players taking on grandmasters.
“It’s a true story, I have just signed the deal for the film. I am starting to research and we will shoot next year. The movie will be filmed in Uganda,” the director told IANS while she was here to promote “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” her latest film.
Nair is remembered for shooting movies like Mississippi Masala, that was partly shot in Uganda she is married to Uganda professor Mahmoud Mamdani.
Nair praised the girl saying, she is “amazing, very modest and quiet”.
“I have met the girl. If you see where she has come from and what she has achieved, entirely through the dint of her own mind, it is very amazing. But she is also very modest, she is very quiet, and she is not easy to get to know in a way. I am looking forward to know her better, I have just met her once,” said the acclaimed filmmaker.
Mutesi together with Ivy Amoko are the only lady chess players that are women candidate masters in this country and in the whole of East Africa. Mutesi, will be part of Uganda’s team going to take part at the World Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway next month.