Obama tributes from India's most acclaimed women in films

NEW YORK: Barack Obama's election as US president is historic not just for Americans but for people the world over, say three of Indian cinema's best known women  - Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Shabana Azmi. 

Tributes to the president-elect who will be the first African American in the White House poured in Wednesday at the the opening of the five-day MIAAC Film Festival of Indian Independent and Diaspora films.

"It is an amazing, amazing victory for people of all colour, for people who have been disenfranchised," said Indian Canadian director Mehta, who was in New York for the screening of her newest film "Heaven on Earth".

"Obama as (US) president is the best news of the century," Mehta said.

India-born New York-based Mira Nair, who campaigned for Obama, said emphatically: "Anything is possible". 

Last month, Nair had organised a literary meet in support of Obama. It was attended by literary giants of Indian origin like Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Suketu Mehta and Manil Suri.

The Mumbai-based actor-activist Azmi also termed it a historic occasion.

"I consider myself extremely privileged to have witnessed America creating history in the election of Obama as the president of the United States," Azmi, who partied all night in celebration, told the audience.

"As an artiste I feel and recognise that the only atmosphere in which art can survive is that of freedom, liberal values and democracy," she said.