Angels from Bollywood saved Mumbai Film Festival 16th Edition

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The lovers of international films were disheartened and shocked to know that due to financial crunch 16thedition of Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) will not take place.. For them iMumbai Film Festival brings opportunity to see world cinema, see interaction of creative people making in different part of world, fighting unending battle against commercial cinema. It works as a window to breathe fresh cinema which is otherwise not possible .The good news is that due to sheer activism and initiative by Ameer Khan, Anurag Kayshap and many more angels, the Festival is now setto roll out from Oct 14 here. Anand Mahindra, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Bhushan Kumar, Shahid Kapoor, Rajkumar Rao, Varun Dhawan, Karan Johar, Raj Kumar Hirani and many more came forward to join the cause, which is very encouraging. Due to funds restraint, this year the size is scaled down but Festival still be able to showcase over 185 films from more than 65countries. MAMI has called a Press Conference at Novotel
Hotel Juhu to officially announce the festival.

Is is not pathetic that , in a country, where commercial cinema dominates the film scenario, Bollywood boasts to release films touching / crossing the mark of Rs.100 Crore huge , which is next to Hollywood in terms of revenue, the film fraternity has not been able to create a corpus fund so far which may take care and keep a festival like MAMI going. When I asked this question, many evasive replies came from the dais, but talking privately Kiran Rao as well as Anurag Kayshap both assured to carry out this suggestion and shortly they will initiate creation of Corpus Fund. I had initiated and offered Rs5000/- contribution for the corpus which was cheered by the entire crowd in the Press Conference.

"I have to pinch myself to believe thatit's really happening. 15 days back we were about to set out a release thatit's not happening. Later many people came forward to support it," avisibly emotional MFF director Srinivasan Narayanan told reporters referring tothe financial problems that the fest faced.
Organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image(MAMI), the eight-day fest will be held at PVR Cinemas, which will be the mainvenue, while Liberty Cinemas at Marine Lines will be used as the satellitevenue.
Various dignitaries from the Indianentertainment industry attended the press conference, including trustees ofMAMI Kiran Rao, Farhan Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Amit Khanna and Vikramaditya Motwane. writer and film critic Anupama Chopra. The guiding force from the beginning, noted film director Shyam Benegal could not attend the conference due to his ill health but his message full of enthusiasm was displayed on screen.
This year's line up include Xavier Dolans'"Mommy", Mike Leighs' "Mr Turner", Ken Loachs' "JimmyHall", "Boyhood" by Richard Linklater, Dardenn brothers'"Two Days One Night", Kim Ki Duks' "One on One", YojiYamadas' "The Little House", Jean Luc Godards' and "Party Girl" by Marie Amachoukeli Barsacq.
French Embassy alongwith Unifrance will showcase best of French contemporary cinema including French Riviera, Metamorphoses, Girlhood, Goodbye to Language, The Blue Room.
Also, the fest will put spotlight on Arab Cinema and 25 movies will be presented from the region.
A series of restored films will also bescreened and special master classes by internationally acclaimedcinematographer Christopher Doyle and director writer Mahamat Saleh Haroun willbe organised.

Reported by Pradeep Gupta


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