JioMAMI Mumbai Film Festival unveils its line-up
Two new sections were introduced this year in Half Ticket, which caters to kids and will see students from 37 schools across Mumbai queue up to see over 20 plus films
Taxi, Dheepan and From Afar, winners of the top prizes at the Berlin, Cannes and Venice film festivals respectively, will all be screened at the JioMAMI Mumbai Film Festival, which starts on Oct 29. Add to it SXSW winner Krisha and the 17th edition of the festival, led by new faces in chairperson Kiran Rao and festival director Anupama Chopra, looks set to make its presence felt on the international map with a host of award-winning films. The ladies were joined by filmmakers Vishal Bhardwaj and Dibakar Banerjee, Disney India head Sidharth Roy Kapur, creative director Smriti Kiran among others to announce the line-up which features over 200 films from over 35 countries. Film critic and author Chopra, who stepped in last year to save the festival from shutting down, said, "All of you should just take the week off".
That's because cinephiles will be spoilt for choice this year. The International Competition section has 15 films including one Indian selection in debutant filmmaker Raam Reddy's Kannada film Thithi, which won two awards at the Locarno International Film Festival. The India Gold section has 13 selections including Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Shweta Tripathi-starrer Haraamkhor, Suraj Sharma-starrer Umrika, Gurvinder Singh's Chauthi Koot, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes, Island City, which won its maker Ruchika Oberoi the FEDORA prize at the Venice Film Festival, Vetrimaaran's Visaaranai, which was the first Tamil film to be chosen for the Orizzonti competitive category in the 72-year history of the Venice festival.
Two new sections were introduced in Half Ticket, which caters to kids and will see students from 37 schools across Mumbai queue up to see over 20 plus films; After Dark is the horror section which has five films and kicks off with Nikon & Q's Ludo. The world cinema section is filled with features from acclaimed filmmakers such as Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights trilogy, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin, Pablo Larrain's The Club, Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash, Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster, Nanni Moretti's Mia Madre, Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart, Noah Baumbach's Mistress America, Paolo Sorrentino's Youth to name a few. Chopra added that with the festival only weeks away it continues to accommodate more films with emails pouring in with confirmations. "We're going mad," she said. "I have got white hair already."
This time around, a chunk of the films in the festival roster will be from India. Introducing the Indian films, Dibakar Banerjee emphasised the need to celebrate local cinema and also called the Mumbai Film Festival a "cultural icon" which celebrated the "diverse, ever-exciting, tolerant" side of India which has gone missing lately in the wake of the Dadri lynching. Apart from Dimensions Mumbai, which showcases shorts, and Discovering India, there's India Story which has 18 features and documentaries highlighting the diversity of the nation which makes maximum number of films. They include For the Love of a Man, which follows die-hard fans of Rajinikanth and The Train Leaves at Four, a film which is in Hindi and Baiga-Boli. Hindi film buffs can revisit the cinema of Chetan Anand, who gets a festival tribute, with screenings of Heer Ranjha, Taxi Driver, Neecha Nagar and Haqeeqat. Even the restored classics sidebar is heavy on Indian films with screenings of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, Guru Dutt's Pyaasa and Ritwik Ghatak's Komal Ghandaar. Hansal Mehta-directed Aligarh, starring Manoj Bajpayee and Rajkummar Rao, which is based on a true story about the trials and tribulations of a homosexual professor, will be the opening film. Pan Nalin's Angry Indian Goddesses gets a special screening.
Other attractions include a workshop with renowned and respected film critic Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian in film writing and criticism. Ava DuVernay, director of Oscar-nominated Selma, will head the international competition jury. The opening night will see legendary writing duo Salim-Javed recognised with the Excellence in Indian Cinema award. Israel filmmaker Amos Gitai will be the recipient of the Excellence in International Cinema award. The Film Mela, to be held on Oct 31 at Mehboob Studio in Bandra, will see Rishi Kapoor conduct a master class, attendance by actors such as Alia Bhatt, Arjun Kapoor, Aditya Roy Kapur, Parineeti Chopra as well as a session in which Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijat Joshi, writers of 3 Idiots and PK, share how they collaborate on writing blockbusters.