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The US Justice Department released over three million pages of documents, including 2,000 videos and 1,80,000 images, on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A number of famous names and faces have been included in the files that have been made public. Epstein and late financier and his accomplice British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell have been pictured with and were in contact with several celebrities too, including Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Kevin Spacey and Jay-Z.

In the latest declassified documents, filmmaker Mira Nair's name has also been revealed. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's mother and a filmmaker, Nair attended an afterparty at convicted sex trafficker Maxwell's house for her 2009 film Amelia, revealed a new set of Epstein files.

Nair has been a popular filmmaker in her own right. She was born in Odisha and made history with her first feature film as a director. Salaam Bombay (1988), which featured Irrfan Khan, Shafiq Syed, Raghuvir Yadav, Nana Patekar and more, was only the 2nd Indian movie to secure an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category, with the first being Mehboob Khan's Mother India.

Salaam Bombay also won awards at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 1988 and was also honoured with the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. In 2012, Nair was awarded India's third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan, by then president of India, Pratibha Patil. Nair went to make critically acclaimed movies like Mississippi Masala, Monsoon Wedding, The Namesake and The Reluctant Fundamentalist all of which were favourites in the international film festival circuit.

Nair's last full-fledged directorial was the Netflix series A Suitable Boy, featuring Ishaan Khatter and Tabu. With her name being mentioned in the Epstein Files, even though not an indication of any wrongdoing, has brought her back in focus, albeit in a negative light.