Filmmaker Maris Curran, who we talked with about her Toronto premiere, Five Nights in Maine, last Fall, forwarded this interview she did with a director she admires, Mira Nair. Nair (Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding, The Reluctant Fundamentalist) is one of the most articulate directors out there when it comes down to unpacking the process of being a director. Curran, whose own feature should reach theaters this Fall, asks Nair direct questions about the job of the director, ambition, budgets, and knowing when a project is the right one to develop years of one’s life on. “Never do anything as a stepping stone to something else,” is just one of Nair’s resonant pieces of advice in this recommended 17-minute clip produced by Adobe.