Day 6 at 14th Mumbai Film Festival enthralls one and all !
The 6th day at the 14th Mumbai Film Festival, presented by Reliance Entertainment and American Express and organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image saw cinephiles and patrons arrive in large numbers for their day’s dose of exquisite cinematic fare. Despite some regrettable changes in screening schedules owing to unprecedented technical challenges the audience remained empathic and cooperative.
The day long showcasing saw the eagerly anticipated 2012 French-language drama film Amour written and directed by legendary filmmaker Michael Haneke that was followed by a stellar assortment of films including British comedy-drama film The Angels’ Share directed by Ken Loach, Children Of Sarajevo by Aida Begic, The Way Steve Jobs Changed The World a documentary tribute to the innovator, Investment a Marathi language film by acclaimed Marathi playwright Ratnakar Matkari, the premiere of Baandhon (Waves of Silence) an Assamese language film directed by Jahnu Barua and
BMW a film by multi faceted third generation filmmaker, photojournalist, actor (Black Friday, Mandi, 1983) Aditya Bhattacharya among others.
Spotted soaking in the cinema were actors Sanjay Suri, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Javed Jaffery, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Razzak Khan, notable filmmakers Amole Gupte and Reema Kagti, ace dancer and choreographer Astad Deboo.
An educative open forum discussion titled Reaching Audiences Worldwide- Do we really understand the overseas film business and distribution witnessed the participation of successful Indian film producer Madhu Mantena (Ghajini), Screen magazine’s contributing editor of Asia Liz Shackleton, Vice President of the Indian Film Exporters Association Hirachand Dand, Mahesh Ramanathan, CEO at Reliance Big Entermainment and Vikramjit Roy, Head of Production, National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC). During the discussion, the panelists collectively shared keen insights into the mechanism of film distribution as well as the operation and execution of various international film marketing strategies.
Attendees at the evening segment enjoyed the special section ‘Restored Classics’, an endeavor to highlight the importance of Preservation and Restoration of films, with the feature of Inferno, a 1911 film directed by Francesco Bertolini, Giuseppe De Liguoro and Adolfo Padovan.
The evening concluded with the screening of Bengali film Paanch Adhyay (Afterglow) by film critic turned writer-director Pratim Das Gupta who was accompanied by the leading stars of the film Priyanshu Chatterjee and Dia Mirza at the media event convened after.
At this edition of the festival Film India Worldwide (programmed annually by Uma Da Cunha for MAMI) presented the first Film India Worldwide Jury Award to Nepali-French film Soongra- dance of the orchid. The award was conferred to the winner by members of the illustrious three-member jury Therese Mayes, Programmer of Indian & Asian Films at Palm Springs, International Film Festival and distinguished Indian filmmaker Dev Benegal and Prashant Nair.
The 14th Mumbai Film Festival is scheduled from the 18th – 25th October, 2012 at National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) & Inox, Nariman Point, Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax Sion as the satellite venues.
