Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival Unveils Bumper Line-up, With Expanded South Asia Vision & New Competition

Liz Shackleton
·5 min read

Mumbai Film Festival has announced a packed line-up of 250 films, including the 14 titles selected for its inaugural South Asia Competition, part of an expansion of the festival’s vision to become a hub for works from South Asia and South Asian diaspora talent.

Returning as an in-person event with backing from Reliance Jio, the festival will be based at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) with screenings taking place across eight venues and 20 screens in Mumbai. The 10-day festival, organized by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), will open with a glamorous red carpet event at NMACC on October 27 and run until November 5, with the awards ceremony being held on November 3.

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The South Asia Competition includes films from debut and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as diaspora filmmakers from the UK and Germany. Selected titles include Kanu Behl’s Agra, an India-France co-production that premiered at Cannes, along with Bhutan’s The Monk And The Gun and Nepal-Sri Lanka co-production The Red Suitcase (see full list below).

Outside of the South Asia competition, the festival is also screening 22 features and 24 non-features in its non-competitive Focus South Asia section, as well presenting eight works in its Icons: South Asia section, including Paradise, directed by Sri Lanka’s Prasanna Vithanage and Something Like An Autobiography from Bangladesh’s Mostofa Sarwar Farooki.

In addition, the Gala Premier South Asia section will screen titles such as Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy, Tahira Kashyap’s Sharmajee Ki Beti and Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa by Rajat Kapoor.

Deepti Dcunha, Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival Artistic Director, said: “We are very proud that we have managed to achieve such a diverse curation in our South Asia section within the first year of us expanding our vision to be a festival that is focused on building an ecosystem for new cinematic voices from South Asia and the South Asian Diaspora. This commitment extends beyond film screenings, aiming to facilitate the exchange of ideas, collaborations, and business opportunities while bringing the best of world cinema to Mumbai.”

In total the line-up includes 40 world premieres, 45 Asia premieres, and more than 70 South Asia premieres. The World Cinema section will showcase more than 90 titles from over 35 countries, including recent festival hits such as Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy Of A Fall, Bradley Cooper’s Oscar-tipped Maestro, and Madeleine Gavin’s Beyond Utopia, which won the Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival.

MAMI’s Head of International Programming Anu Rangachar said: “We have curated some of the most discerning international titles for the festival audience. Besides the buzzworthy titles, there are several other titles that have ended up becoming Academy Award nominees from their respective countries. These titles have the innate potential to only get bigger with time. Our curation also has some hidden gems that one wouldn’t be able to otherwise watch in India, as the probability of them independently releasing here is fairly low.”

Speaking at the press conference, Anupama Chopra, Jio MAMI Festival Director, said: “With every new edition of the festival, we  hope to create a larger impact for all our stakeholders, from filmmakers to audiences. Our commitment to  cinema and filmmakers remains at the heart of all that we stand for at the festival, and we hope to emerge as a melting pot of talent from across the world while spotlighting and creating more opportunities for South Asian films and filmmakers”

Maitreyee Dasgupta, Jio MAMI Co-Director, added: “We are looking forward to hosting the 10-day-long festival that offers a platform for established and emerging filmmakers to be a part of an ecosystem that encourages co-creation and business opportunities. Through the various programmes and competitions, the festival strives to be a destination where filmmakers and audiences feel empowered, heard, and experience the joy of cinema, its impact, and new ideas.”

Other categories at the festival include Marathi Talkies, showcasing the best of contemporary Marathi cinema; short film sections Dimensions Mumbai and the Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films competition; After Dark, curated by BIFAN’s Jongsuk Thomas Nam, Restored Classics, MAMI Tribute, Retrospective, and a Recap section, revisiting the festival’s selection from 2020 to 2022, when the festival was forced to take place online.

Jio MAMI will also host an Industry Programme, involving screenings, networking opportunities, labs, workshops and masterclasses. Anupama Bose, who runs the festival’s Year Round Programme, is organising a ‘Trade Talk’ section focused on film distribution as part of the event.

Mumbai Film Festival 2023 South Asia Competition:

Against The Tide, Sarvnik Kaur (India)
South Asia Premiere

Agra, Kanu Behl (India, France)
South Asia Premiere

Bahadur The Brave, Diwa Shah (India)
Asia Premiere

Barir Naam Shahana, Leesa Gazi (Bangladesh, UK)
World Premiere

Dilli Dark, Dibakar Das Roy (India)
World Premiere

Guras, Saurav Rai (India)
South Asia Premiere

Which Colour?, Shahrukhkhan Chavada (India)
Asia Premiere

Mithya, Sumanth Bhat (India)
World Premiere

Rapture, Dominic Sangma (India, China, Netherlands, Qatar, Switzerland)
South Asia Premiere

Shivamma, Jaishankar Aryar (India)
South Asia Premiere

A Match, Jayant Somalkar (India)
Asia Premiere

The Sentence, Fazil Razak (India)
World Premiere

The Monk And The Gun, Pawo Choyning Dorji (Bhutan, France, US, Taiwan)
India Premiere

The Red Suitcase, Fidel Devkota (Nepal, Sri Lanka)
Asia Premiere

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