A Fork, A Spoon and A Knight

A Fork, A Spoon and A Knight

TFI Suppport

The Power of Words 2014

Logline

An unknown slum boy grows up to transform one of Uganda’s largest slums, into an internationally recognized Chess Sanctuary.
Mandela quote: "Difficulties break some men but make others."

A Fork, A Spoon and A Knight

Nair Mira

DIRECTOR

Mira Nair is an award-winning filmmaker who fluidly moves between Hollywood and independent cinema. After several years of making documentary films, Mira made a stunning entry onto the world stage with her debut feature film Salaam Bombay! (1988). Now hailed as a classic, the film has received more than 25 international awards, including an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988. Her second film, Mississippi Masala (1991) won three awards at Venice. In 2001, Monsoon Wedding, won the Golden Lion at the 2001 Venice Film Festival, becoming one of the highest grossing foreign films of all time. Nair then directed the Golden Globe winning Hysterical Blindness (2002). After making William Makepeace Thackeray’s epic Vanity Fair (2004), she directed a film based on Jhumpa Lahiri’s best-selling novel The Namesake (2006). This was followed by the Amelia Earhart biopic, Amelia (2009) starring Hilary Swank and Richard Gere. Her latest film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, was a thriller based on the best-selling novel by Mohsin Hamid. It opened the 2012 Venice Film Festival to critical acclaim, and was released worldwide in early 2013. Her 2014 The Power of Words film is titled A Fork, A Spoon and A Knight.

A Fork, A Spoon and A Knight

Jasmine Velez

FILM FELLOW

Jasmine Velez is a junior at Queens College majoring in Cinema Studies and minoring in Anthropology. From 2011-2013 she co-directed the short documentary film Triggering Wounds in conjunction with Maysles Film Center and Harlem Hospital. Most recently, she directed, edited and produced a documentary short titled Frisly, which premiered in April 2014 at the Tribeca Film Festival, received the Tribeca Film Fellows 2014 Creative Excellence Award and went on the screen at the Queens Museum. Her documentaries have been featured in The New York Times and on NBC Voces. Her 2014 The Power of Words contribution included the interactive project titled Truth Booth, by Hank Willis Thomas and A Fork, A Spoon and A Knight, by Mira Nair.