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The Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival this year is set to be bigger, with more events and venues

Stills from Sheena and Sonum Sumaria’s Even the Crows: A Divided Gujarat

It was initiated last year to turn the spotlight on women in film industries across the world. Now, Mumbai Women’s International Film Festival (MWIFF) is set to return in its second edition. Prompted by the success of the inaugural edition, the festival this year has been organised on a much larger scale. “The focus is on quality cinema,” says festival director Avinash Pawar.

To be held from December 6 to 13, the eight-day festival will feature the works of women filmmakers and technicians from across the world — independent, social, art, cultural and alternate films, spanning across categories such as short film, short documentary, full length documentary, feature film and world cinebusters. This year, MWIFF received 457 entries from 62 countries, up from 380 last year. But the number of films being screened has reduced from 210 to 150 as the festival has cut down on the non-competitive section. As a result, fewer Bollywood films will be screened while last year, works by Gauri Shinde, Reema Kagti, and Kiran Rao were the highlights.

In order to improve the quality of films, MWIFF had a jury panel — including screenwriter Devika Bhagat, director Nupur Asthana, editor Deepa Bhatia and French writer, director and producer Olivier Delahaye — to screen the entries. Some of their selections are Soniya Kirpalani’s 17 Not Required Indians about migrant labour issues in the UAE; Even the crows: A Divided Gujarat by Sheena Sumaria; and Blouse by Mumbai-based Vijayeta Kumar, in addition to films from Germany, Switzerland and the US.

“While we do screen films only by women, it’s not a feminist approach. The motto has always been to showcase the success and experiments of existing filmmakers and through that, provide inspiration to people aspiring to create,” says Pawar.

The number of venues have also been increased and include Liberty Cinema, PL Deshpande Kala Academy, Ravindra Natya Mandir and Carnival Cinema in Borivili. There will also be discussions, excellence awards and workshops on various subjects such as the importance of distribution and guerilla-style filmmaking. There will also be a concert by indie musicians on December 12, in collaboration with MTV Indies, whose line-up is yet to be announced.

The closing ceremony, to felicitate winners, will be one of the highlights of the festival, and will be held at the Gateway of India on December 13.

shikha.kumar@expressindia.com

First uploaded on: 27-11-2014 at 00:38 IST

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