Mumbai Festival Opens New Spotlight Category With ‘Trapped’

The upcoming Mumbai Film Festival is to launch a new programming strand titled Spotlight. It will open with the world premiere of “Trapped,” starring Rajkummar Rao who was one of the leads in last year’s opener “Aligarh” that also played Busan and London.

Vikramaditya Motwane, whose “Udaan” played at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2010, is the director.

“I’m ecstatic, and absolutely petrified, to be premiering my film at MAMI. It’s a film based in Mumbai and it’s apt that its world premiere be here, in the presence of my hometown audience and at a festival I absolutely adore,” said Motwane.

Other Spotlight selections include Priyadarshan’s “Sometimes,” Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Toronto, Busan and London selection “The Bait,” Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Toronto selection “Once Again,” Brahmanand Singh’s “Paper Boat,” and an anthology of short films, “Shor se Shuruat” by emerging directors Supriya Sharma, Arunima Sharma, Rahul V. Chittela, Pratik Kothari, Amira Bhargava, Annie Zaidi, Satish Raj and Kasireddi.

The Mumbai festival runs Oct. 20-27 and will screen some 175 films from 54 countries.

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