Mumbai Film Festival Preview: Scroll.In (Two Articles)

[I will sadly be missing it this year, given my relocation to New York around October-end — Qalandar]

Youth (Paolo Sorrentino)

LINK 1

EXCERPT: “…Long-time festival director Srinivasan Narayanan has been replaced by journalist and author Anupama Chopra, and she has a new team of selectors and programmers. The Mumbai Academy of Moving Image, under whose aegis the festival has been held all these years, is now headed by Kiran Rao instead of Shyam Benegal. Even the name of the event is different, in deference to Reliance Jio, the new principal sponsor: it now goes under the awkward banner of Jio MAMI.

The festival will be held in Mumbai from October 29 to November 5, and its line-up of close to 200 films will include close to 40 titles made entirely by Indians or in collaboration with international producers. Apart from the first features that will compete in the Indian and international competition sections, the long list of foreign films includes such festival favourites as Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth, Jia Zhangke’s Mountains May Depart, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s The Assassin, Hong Sangsoo’s Right Now, Wrong Then, Jafar Panahi’s Taxi, Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America, Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre and Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years.”

LINK 2

EXCERPT: “More than 30 films and documentaries are part of the line-up, including titles that have been screened at foreign festivals. Among these are Visaaranai and Island City, both of which were shown at the Venice Film Festival; Chauthi Koot, which was exhibited at Cannes; Thithi, shown in Locarno; Umrika and Dhanak, which have done the rounds of the international festival circuit; and Kothanodi, which has been screened at the Busan and London events. Hansal Mehta’s Aligarh, which was also at Busan, will be the opening film at MAMI.”