Director David O. Russell’s film Silver Linings Playbook , featuring Indian actor Anupam Kher and Robert De Niro, opened on Thursday the 14 Mumbai Film Festival.
The film premiered at Toronto where it won the People’s Choice award. The Mumbai festival has a line-up of over 230 movies with special event segments dedicated to French, Italian, Afghan and Indian cinema as well as silent films accompanied by a live orchestra, according to a statement. This edition of the festival will close with the screening of Blancanieves , a 2012 black-and-white silent Spanish drama film directed by Pablo Berger.
The festival is presented by Reliance Entertainment, American Express and organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image.
Blancanieves is the official Spanish entry for the Best Foreign Language film at the 85th Academy Awards in 2013. It premiered at the Toronto festival and won the Special Jury Prize and Mumbai is only the third film festival where it will be showcased.
There is also a Pakistani entry Josh , the story of a privileged woman whose life is shattered in a single moment. Directed by Iram Parveen Bilal, the film focuses on the biggest challenge to Pakistan’s still reigning feudalism: the country’s youth. The film explores the internal debates the young are struggling with and how solutions can be attainable if and when they stand united.
The ‘India Gold 2012’ section will see 13 Indian language films by debutante directors competing for the Golden Gateway trophy, plus cash prize of Rs. 10 lakh for the Best Film and Silver Gateway trophy and cash prize of Rs. 5 lakh for the Second Best Film, in addition to the Reliance Media Works CreaTech (Creativity and Technology) Award. The competition will be judged by an all international jury of film technicians and professionals.
The festival features a selection of 20 films from World Cinema which include Love(Amour), a 2012 French film, written and directed by Michael Haneke, Rust and Bone(De rouille et d'os) , a 2012 French-Belgian film based on a short story collection of the same name written by Craig Davidson, Canadian director Sarah Polley’ s Stories We Tell, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt — a film about the life of a primary schoolteacher accused of sexual inappropriateness, Cosmopolis —a film by David Cronenberg, The Angels' Share — a British comedy-drama film directed by Ken Loach, Like Someone in Love by Abbas Kiarostami, You Ain't Seen Nothin’ Yet by Alain Resnais, among other films. There will also be films with live musical accompaniment. The orchestra Tuten & Blasen, invited by the Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan and Mumbai Film Festival, will perform a cinema concert to accompany the silent film “ Prapancha Pash — A Throw of Dice (Schicksalswürfel)”, a 1929 black-and-white film based on an episode from the Mahabharata by German-born director Franz Osten.
The festival was inaugurated by actor Sridevi at a simple function. Director Shyam Benegal said this was the best Indian film festival and there was a huge selection of films on offer. Award-winning director Zhang Yimou was given the lifetime achievement award by Tina Ambani.
