The Mumbai Film Festival organised by Mumbai Academy for Moving Image has moved in to the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) in the southern most tip of Mumbai this year in its quest for a permanent home. The festival is now just a stone’s throw away from the Arabian Sea with venues all over Nariman Point — screens at the NCPA and INOX — and Liberty Cinemas in Marine Lines with Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax, Sion as satellite venues, to cater to the suburbs.
Over 230 films from 65 countries will be screened between October 18 and 25 this year at these venues.
This year's line-up impresses with some of the most awaited films around the world, including Michael Haneke’s Amour , Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard, Sarah Polley’s highly acclaimed Stories We Tell , Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt , Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, Ken Loach’s The Angel’s Share , Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond The Hills , Walter Salles’ On The Road , Abbas Kiarostami’s Like Someone in Love .
The international competition has two Indian films, Anand Gandhi's The Ship of Theseus and Musa Syeed’s Valley of Saints , competing with 11 other films from around the world, including Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild , Electrick Children by Rebecca Thomas, Armando Bo’s Argentianian film The Last Elvis , the Dutch film Kauwboy directed by Boudewijn Koole, The Sapphires by Australian filmmaker Wayne Blair and the Danish film Teddy Bear by Mads Matthiesen.
100 years of Indian cinema
The other highlights of the festival include a selection of 30 Italian films, a segment called Kabul Fresh that will feature new voices from Afghanistan, eight French films and a screening of silent films with a live orchestra to commemorate 100 years of Indian cinema. So this would be your chance to see Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra (1913), Shri Krishna Janma (1917), Lanka Dahan (1917), Kaliya Mardan (1919), Brick Lating and Pidhache Panche (1922) on the big screen.
The New Faces in Indian Cinema this year feature film critic Pratim Das Gupta’s Paanch Adhyay (Bengali), Saptapadi (Gujarati) by Niranjan Thade, Oass (Hindi) by Abhinav Tiwari, Nitin Kakkar’s Filmistan (Hindi), a Konkani film Digant by Dnyanesh Moghe, Priya Krishnaswamy’s Gangoobai and Nandigramer Chokher Paani (Bengali) by Sarfaraz Alam and Shyamal Karmakar.
The India Gold section has some premieres lined up too: Nikhil Mahajan’s noir thriller Pune 52 , Manjeet Singh’s heart-warming Mumbai Cha Raja , Hansal Mehta’s gritty Shahid , Ashim Ahluwalia’s quirky take on Mumbai’s B-film industry Miss Lovely , Girish Kasaravalli’s Kurmavatara , Jahnu Barua’s Baandhon and Prashant Rasily’s Kathaa among others. Actor Waheeda Rahman would be awarded the Indian Lifetime Achievement Award and the festival has also planned homage segments for Rajesh Khanna, Dara Singh and A.K. Hangal.
The registrations (read access to all these films) cost only Rs. 600 for students and Rs. 1,050 for general public if done before October 5 (it’s Rs. 800 and Rs. 1,400 respectively otherwise). You can register online at mumbaifilmfest.com
