Following a three-year pandemic hiatus, India’s Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival is returning in expanded form this fall with a bumper selection of 250 films and an ambitious focus on South Asian cinema.
The festival, which runs from Oct. 27 to Nov. 5 in Mumbai, revealed the bulk of its lineup Monday and the chair of its main competition jury on Tuesday. Indian-American filmmaker Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding, Salaam Bombay!), a Venice Golden Lion winner and Oscar nominee, will lead the jury that selects winners of the festival’s main South Asia competition section.
Organizers say the festival’s new vision is “to become a hub for South Asian and South Asian Diaspora cinema and talent.” Thus, the competition will showcase 14 “breakthrough contemporary South Asian films” from debutant and second-time filmmakers from across India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, as well as diaspora diectors from the U.K. and Germany. Some of the highlights include Mithya by Sumanth Bhat, Barir Naam Shahana (A House Named Shahana) by Leesa Gazi and The Red Suitcase by Fidel Devkota (full lineup below).
Cementing MAMI’s role as the premiere film-world destination for discovering new talent from the region, an additional non-competition section will present 46 films (22 features and 24 non-features) showcasing the rich tapestry of South Asian cinematic visions.
“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,” said MAMI’s artistic director Deepti DCunha in a statement. “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.”
The festival’s focus is not only local. The event’s World Cinema Section will showcase more than 90 titles from over 35 countries, including many recent festival favorites, such as Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet, Bradley Cooper’s Oscar-tipped Maestro, Sundance audience award winner Beyond Utopia from Madeleine Gavin, Monster by Hirokazu Kore-eda, In Our Day by Hong Sang-soo, Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodóvar, The Old Oak by Ken Loach and Fallen Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki, among many others.
The festival is also retaining its pre-pandemic mission of being a vital platform for the local filmgoing audience in India to discover important cinema that might not otherwise be available on the big screen in the country.
“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,” explains Anu Rangchar, the festival’s head of international programming. “There’s something for everyone, and we have curated the section keeping our festival audience in mind, who love to be surprised by the narratives of these films.”
MAMI’s various other programming strands in 2023 include: the Icons South Asia section, highlighting major films by established regional directors (Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam by Anand Patwardhan, Indi(r)a’s Emergency by Vikramaditya Motwane, Paradise by Prasanna Vithanage, etc.); Gala Premiere South Asia, a selection of the most ambitious Indian films of the year (such as Kennedy by Anurag Kashyap and Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa by Rajat Kapoor); Marathi Talkies, showing off some of the best in contemporary Marathi cinema; After Dark, a genre filmmaking strand; and various restored classics, tributes, retrospectives and shorts.
The full lineup is below:
SOUTH ASIA COMPETITION
Against the Tide by Sarvnik Kaur
Marathi, Hindi, Koli | India, France | South Asia Premiere
Agra by Kanu Behl
Hindi | India, France | South Asia Premiere
Bahadur – The Brave by Diwa Shah
Hindi, Nepali | India | Asia Premiere
Barir Naam Shahana (A House Named Shahana) by Leesa Gazi
Bengali | Bangladesh, UK | World Premiere
Dilli Dark by Dibakar Das Roy
Bengali, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Pidgin English, Yoruba | India | World Premiere
Guras by Saurav Rai
Nepali | India | South Asia Premiere
Kayo Kayo Colour? (Which Colour?) by Shahrukhkhan Chavada
Gujarati, Hindi | India | Asia Premiere
Mithya by Sumanth Bhat
Kannada, Marathi| India | World Premiere
Rimdogittanga (Rapture) by Dominic Sangma
Garo | India, China, Netherlands, Qatar, Switzerland | South Asia Premiere
Shivamma by Jaishankar Aryar
Kannada | India | South Asia Premiere
Sthal (A Match) by Jayant Somalkar
Marathi | India | Asia Premiere
Thadavu (The Sentence) by Fazil Razak
Malayalam | India | World Premiere
The Monk and the Gun by Pawo Choyning Dorji
Dzongkha, English | Bhutan, France, USA, Taiwan | India Premiere
The Red Suitcase by Fidel Devkota
Nepali | Nepal, Sri Lanka | Asia Premiere
FOCUS SOUTH ASIA – Non-Competition (Features)
Aattam (The Play) by Anand Ekarshi
Malayalam | India | Asia Premiere
Aiz Maka Falea Tuka (Today Me, Tomorrow You) by Sreejith Karnaver
Konkani | India | World Premiere
All India Rank by Varun Grover
Hindi | India | Asia Premiere
Bailadila by Shailendra Sahu
Hindi | India | World Premiere
Be Kucheye Khoshbakht (And, Toward Happy Alleys) by Sreemoyee Singh
English, Farsi | India | South Asia Premiere
Before Spring by Shrutismriti Changkakoti
Assamese | India | World Premiere
Chingari (The Spark) by Rajesh S. Jala
Hindi | India | South Asia Premiere
Daayam (Inheritance) by Prasanth Vijay
Malayalam | India | World Premiere
Dear Latika by Kanchan Pant
Hindi, Kumaoni | India | World Premiere
Follower by Harshad Nalawade
Hindi, Kannada, Marathi | India | Asia Premiere
Ghaath (Ambush) by Chhatrapal Ninawe
Marathi | India | Asia Premiere
Naangal (This Is Us) by Avinash Prakash
Tamil | India | World Premiere
Namaskar! Main Ravish Kumar (While We Watched) by Vinay Shukla
English, Hindi| India, UK | Asia Premiere
Pushtaini (Ancestral) by Vinod Rawat
English, Hindi, Kumaoni | India | Asia Premiere
Riders on the Storm by Jason Motlagh, Mark Oltmanns
Farsi, Pashto | Austria | Asia Premiere
Sahela (Companion) by Raghuvir Joshi
English, Hindi | Australia | Asia Premiere
Shwe Pyi Taw Hmyaw Taing Way (Golden Land Fantasy) by Anatta
Burmese | Myanmar | World Premiere
Stolen by Karan Tejpal
English, Hindi, Marwari, Santhali | India | Asia Premiere
Sultana’s Dream by Isabel Herguera
Basque, Bengali, Hindi, English, Spanish | India, Germany, Spain | South Asia Premiere
The Scavenger of Dreams by Suman Ghosh
Hindi | India | South Asia Premiere
Was Von Der Liebe Bleibt (Between Us) by Kanwal Sethi
German | Germany | Asia Premiere
Zende by Akshay Shah
English, Hindi, Marathi | India | World Premiere
ICONS: SOUTH ASIA
Animating the Archive: Short Films by Amit Dutta
Gau Ayeko Bato (A Road to a Village) by Nabin Subba
Nepali | Nepal | South Asia Premiere
Indi(r)a’s Emergency by Vikramaditya Motwane
English, Hindi | India | World Premiere
PaathKatha (The Golden Thread) by Nishtha Jain
Bengali, Hindi | India, Netherlands, Norway, UK | South Asia Premiere
Paradise by Prasanna Vithanage
English, Hindi, Malayalam, Sinhala, Tamil | Sri Lanka, India | South Asia Premiere
Something Like an Autobiography by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki
Bengali | Bangladesh, Germany, India | South Asia Premiere
Trolley Times by Gurvinder Singh
Punjabi | India | World Premiere
Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (The World is Family) by Anand Patwardhan
English, Hindi, Marathi | India | Asia Premiere
GALA PREMIERES
Berlin by Atul Sabharwal
English, Hindi | India | Asia Premiere
Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa by Rajat Kapoor
Hindi | India | World Premiere
Joram by Devashish Makhija
Hindi | India | South Asia Premiere
Kennedy by Anurag Kashyap
Hindi | India | South Asia Premiere
Sharmajee Ki Beti by Tahira Kashyap Khurrana
Hindi | India | World Premiere
Yellow Bus by Wendy Bednarz
Arabic, English, Hindi, Tagalog, Urdu | India, Jordan, UAE, USA | Asia Premiere
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