It is time yet again for the annual celebration of films with the 19th edition of Mumbai Film Festival organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI). The announcement to the grand gala was made on Friday as attendees raised a toast and uncorked champagne bottles. For a festival that has gone through a rough patch in recent times and lived through it only to become better, with the upcoming edition screening over 220 films from 49 countries in 51 languages, a celebration like this makes sense.
This edition of the film festival will have films in rare languages from across the world, some of which chairperson Kiran Rao inconspicuously confessed to be completely unaware of while she made the announcement. Some of these films will be in languages such as Sami, Kikuyu, Bembe, Nyanja, Tonga, Xhosa, Samoan and Lingala. Most of these are from Africa except Sami (Northern Europe) and Samoan (Samoan Islands). The Indian films lineup too features rare regional languages like Ladakhi, Chokri, Brij and Konkani.
After the announcement, it was revealed that Italian actor Monica Bellucci will be a part of the festival as well. Known for movies like The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions, The Passion of the Christ and for being the oldest Bond girl at 50 in Spectre, she is excited to make her first visit to the country. Bellucci will also be honoured with a special award and be a part of the Masterclass, which will reportedly be moderated by Anurag Kashyap.
Incidentally, the opening film of the festival is Kashyap's Mukkabaaz starring Jimmy Shergill and Vineet Kumar Singh. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and is a love story woven around cattle vigilantism. Kashyap is excited that his film will open the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival this year.
While a lot of other announcements are expected to be made in the run-up to the event, for now, it is exciting enough to know that British director John Madden (Prime Suspect 4, Sherlock Holmes) will be heading the international jury along with cinematographer Alexis Zabe (Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light, Post Tenebras Lux, The Florida Project), Celina Jade (CW’s Arrow and Wolf Warrior 2), a Hong Kong-American actress, singer, songwriter, model and martial artist, with Konkona Sen Sharma (whose directorial debut A Death In The Gunj was last year's opening film) and Argentine film director and screenwriter Santiago Mitre (Lion’s Den, Carancho, White Elephant). All the jury members will be attending the festival too, while whether they will be part of chat sessions is still being discussed.
The world cinema section has an interesting line-up of films that have featured in some of the most prominent festivals. Some of these films are: On Body and Soul, the Hungarian film that was recently screened at TIFF, the Korean film On the Beach at Night Alone by Hong Sang-soo that competed for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival (Claire’s Camera, The Day After from the filmmaker are also on the list), Jennifer Reeder's indie-comedy Signature Move, Polish crime-drama Spoor by Agnieszka Holland that was selected to compete for the Golden Bear in the main competition section of the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, the Australian Western Sweet Country directed by Warwick Thornton that has earlier been screened in the main competition section of the 74th Venice International Film Festival as well as the recently concluded TIFF and Ruben Ostlund’s The Square that featured in Cannes Film Festival. There is also Luca Guadagnino’ Call Me By Your Name, Andrey Zvyagintsev’ Loveless, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s The Third Murder, Aki Kaurismaki’d The Other Side of Hope, and Jochim Trier’s Thelma among others.
The international competition section, a prestigious platform that shines a spotlight on new cinematic voices, open to debut filmmakers from all over the world with films made within the current year includes Alireza Khatami’s Oblivion Verses, Bad Lucky Goat by Samir Oliveros, Scary Mother by Ana Urushadze, I Am Not a Witch by Rungano Nyoni, and Carla Simon’s Summers among others.
In the India Gold, the competition section for Indian feature films, some of the most anticipated Indian films feature including Sexy Durga by Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, Pushpendra Singh’s Ashwatthama,
Ralang Road by Karma Takapa, and Rima Das' Village Rockstars among others.
As MAMI aims to nurture and ignite the passion for films, it has also moved its Movie Mela that earlier happened in parallel with the festival to a few days prior to the festival on October 7. The details of the Mela are yet to be disclosed.
Any announcements for some of the other segments that were introduced in recent years such as Half Ticket (for kids) or After Dark (featuring horror films) are yet to be made. However, like last year, the festival has a tie-up with Royal Stags’ Large Short Films, which will feature short films.
