First Ahmedabad and then Mumbai. The best films of the season are coming to India, one whole month ahead of International Film Festival of India, Goa, which for long had been the festival that premiered the latest crop of films from around the world.
While Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) is opening its festival (October 13-20) with the much-acclaimed Brad Pitt-starrer Moneyball and is boasting of bringing Lars Von Trier's Melancholia, Wim Wender's Pina and George Clooney's Ides of March , the younger International Film Festival of Ahmedabad (October 6-9) that focusses on independent films, is bringing the Sundance Audience award winner HappyThankYouMorePlease, written and directed by Josh Radnor, retrospectives of Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Anurag Kashyap (including the formerly banned Paanch ).
Soundtrack , the Rajeev Khandelwal-Soha Ali Khan starrer, the official remake of It's All Gone Pete Tong , will be the opening film at Ahmedabad on October 6. The festival will be releasing five films from its programming slate in association with PVR to woo independent filmmakers.
“Every filmmaker wants to show his film in theatres to the public and normally independent films are turned down by the distributors. We understand this well and want IFFA to bridge that gap by pioneering such initiatives that will make IFFA the Sundance of the East in the coming years,” says Founder of IFFA and festival director Shiladitya Bora.
Platform for buyers
MAMI, on the other hand, is organising a Film Mart between October 15 and October 17 to provide a platform for buyers to meet filmmakers during the festival.
Movie buffs at MAMI will get an opportunity to interact with filmmaker Hugh Hudson ( I Dreamed of Africa and Revolution Revisted ) and Korean director Na Hong Jin ( The Chaser and The Yellow Sea ) who are in the jury of the international film competition, while cinephiles at Ahmedabad will get a chance to run into local indie heroes Nagesh Kukunoor and Anurag Kashyap.
Both Mumbai and Ahmedabad film festivals have screenwriting workshops to be conducted by screenwriter Anjum Rajabali.
To get delegate passes for the Mumbai Film Festival, register online at www.mumbaifilmfest.com before October 5 for a 25 per cent discount and for passes for the International Film Festival, Ahmedabad, register at www.ifilmfest.in
