An official selection of Indian films to be announced
4th August, 2020, Mumbai – The Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) took a unanimous decision in the light of the coronavirus crisis, the devastating pain and suffering across the country and uncertainty over the reopening of cinemas in Mumbai to push the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival to 2021. The festival will, however, be releasing its official selection of Indian films for the year later in August.
Isha Ambani
“It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to postpone the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2020 to next year. It is our responsibility to do everything we can to keep our communities safe during this crisis. We are humbled and grateful for the special place that the festival has carved for itself in Mumbai’s cultural landscape. We promise that the festival will come back with fullness in spirit and enthusiasm for our beloved city of Mumbai,” said Isha Ambani (Board of Trustees, MAMI).
“The world is grappling with a global calamity. 2020 is about survival, introspection, and
Anupama Chopra
humility. We have decided to prioritize healing this year and hold the festival in its full splendor next year. We will focus and put our might behind our Year-Round Programme’s digital imprint that has already created a stir with Dial M For Films and MAMI YRP Home Theatre. As we carve the path ahead, we would like to thank our partners, sponsors, collaborators, and the filmmaking community for standing by us. Our endeavor will be to support them as much as we can in getting through this dark time,” said Anupama Chopra (Festival Director).
The postponement of the upcoming edition of the festival, however, doesn’t signal any flagging in the academy’s (MAMI) constant effort to galvanize the industry, curate the best Indian cinema and bring them to the widest possible audience. Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival is a crucial milestone in the journey of new films from India as well as a platform that discovers and encourages upcoming film talent. With that in mind, the selection committee at the festival has been watching films relentlessly and an official selection of Indian films for this year will be announced shortly.
Smriti Kiran
“There is absolutely no denying that the pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge to independent films and filmmakers, and there is no digital experience that can replicate a physical festival. But this unfortunate predicament has also come with its own share of opportunities. In the last three months, MAMI has adapted to shifting realities and pivoted to focussed programming online with a two-pronged aim. First, to serve the community of film lovers that have relied on MAMI to bring them the best films from all over the world and the second, to continue to provide filmmakers with a platform to showcase their films. Our online knowledge series, Dial M For Films has received staggering love. We will be taking both the academy and Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival’s key initiatives online and work towards strengthening and exploring a new frontier for MAMI opened by the digital format that is not confined by geography. We stay committed to the independent filmmaking community and our audience. We will continue to nurture the community, serve our audience and expand our footprint by adding more extensions to our digital arm and creating value for filmmakers who are already at a loss this year,” said Smriti Kiran (Artistic Director, MAMI and Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival).
The unexpected impetus provided by COVID-19 has brought home the fact that there is a vast audience outside of Mumbai for the many initiatives that the academy (MAMI) has launched (Dial M For Films, Year-Round Programme Home Theatre), and there is no time like the present to focus on a national imprint for Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival verticals like the Word to Screen Market, Young Critics Lab and the Industry Programme.MAMI has already launched an online extension to its popular year-round imprint called MAMI Year Round Programme Home Theatre which curates films that are shared digitally with a large database of film lovers and empowers filmmakers to bring their films to the audience directly. It has also started an online knowledge series -Dial M For Films, which focuses on breaking down what lies behind the moving image through sharply curated, specific, live conversations with solid film talent. The conversations have found a growing audience as they take viewers on a journey through the process with the lived experience of working professionals that is invaluable. An announcement regarding the dates of Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival in 2021 will be made soon.
About MAMI Year Round Programme & MAMI Initiatives
The MAMI Year Round Programme (MAMI YRP) is a one of a kind film program started by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) in 2016 with the belief that it is not enough, in an ecosystem like India, to have just a week-long film festival. It hosts weekly screenings, workshops and conversation sessions for film lovers in the country. This has given the academy a year-long imprint and presence as opposed to presence only for a week in the year. Through this program, passionate film lovers can sign up and access the best and latest Indian and international films, series, and talent throughout the year. The Year-Round Programme has expanded its footprint and now encompasses an online screening arm, MAMI Year Round Programme Home Theatre and the online knowledge series Dial M For Films which puts the audience and aspiring film professionals in the front seat with some of the best in the business.
Along with the thriving MAMI Year Round Programme, MAMI will also take a host of its popular festival (Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival) initiatives online which include the Young Critics Lab (YCL), Word to Screen Market and the Industry Programme.YCL was set up to foster young writing talent in the field of cinema. The online YCL mentored by acclaimed film critics Baradwaj Rangan and Mike McCahill will enable students from all over India to participate and will feature in-depth modules that examine and hone analytical as well as writing skills. Word to Screen Market is a first of its kind of platform in India where authors, publishers, and the literary community engage directly with content creators to option stories for films, TV, and the digital medium. This year, Word to Screen will take place online and focus on digital workshops with publishers and content creators. The Industry Programme was launched last year with an aim to galvanize the industry nationally and globally for knowledge exchange, connections, discovery, and collaborations. In its online avatar, the program will bring together creators from all over India to talk about the challenges they face and share their learnings. For more information log onto http://www.mumbaifilmfestival.com.
One of the classics at Cannes Film Festival in May was AJ Kardar’s 1959 black and white movie, Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn).
The film, which was to be screened as part of the Restored Classics Section of Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival starting October 20, has been dropped.
Made in 1959 in what was then East Bengal, Kardar’s work was to have screened at Mumbai. But the prevailing political climate has not allowed this.
In a section titled, Restored Classics — which has become quite a hit at Cannes since it was introduced some years ago and which has seen the works of some Indian masters like Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen figuring — Jago Hua Savera was described as a gem.
Be that as it may, Jago Hua Savera is a haunting piece of celluloid that was also Pakistan’s first ever submission to the Foreign Language Oscars. The year was 1960. A moving story of fishermen in East Pakistan, the movie traces their weaknesses and strengths — clearly underlying their never-say-die spirit in the face of a hostile nature and prowling man-eating tigers.A Cannes brochure said: “By many standards, life in these far flung tiny villages is dull and monotonous, yet, for the people who live there, life is full of trials and turbulence. This is the story of the people of the river to hunt for fish. This is the story of one such man, of many such men, each aspiring to own their own boat.” The simple folk had a simple aspiration – to own a fishing boat, but caught in a web of loans, they lost even before they began their fight. The big sharks were too powerful for these small fish.
After all these years, what strikes as truly remarkable about Jago Hua Savera was its truly international crew and cast. The revolutionary Pakistani poet, Faiz Ahmad, wrote the screenplay and even penned lyrics for this quasi-documentary fiction, while a German-born British cameraman, Walter Lassally, caught the fantastic rural scenes with a kind of unforgettable magic. He used the Arriflex camera with superb dexterity to capture a set of rank amateur actors as they went about their mundane lives on the banks of Meghna. The style was true realism.
The original story came from West Bengal’s Manik Bandhopadhyay, the lead actor, Tripti Mitra, too. She was a member of the Indian People’s Theatre Association. And Indian music director, Timir Baran, co-composed along with Pakistan’s producer-composer Nauman Taseer. Shanti Chatterjee, an assistant of Satyajit, was also part of the crew. And one can see Ray’s influence in Kardar’s work.
Cut to present. The movie was restored with the help of the Nauman Taseer Foundation. Picture and the Deluxe Restoration in London. Taseer had been the financial backbone of Jago Hua Savera in its original avatar. Now his son, Anjum, took it upon himself to reconstruct a long-forgotten classic. He dug up the prints from France, London and Karachi, screened them at festivals like the Three Continents at Nantes (France) and New York, before he got restoration teams to work on the film, a painstaking job.
When the digitally-remastered movie was shown at Cannes, Faiz’s daughter and celebrated poet now living in Lahore, Salima Hashmi, had tears welling up, and she called the experience “emotional”. Understandably so. For, her father was in jail — as part of the anti-Communist crackdown by Pakistan’s General Ayub Khan — when Jago Hua Savera premiered in London. The movie went on to win a Gold at the 1959 Moscow Film Festival, and nothing was heard of it after that. Till it re-emerged as a brand new print at Cannes.
And Kardar’s life like that of the fishermen in the film ran parallel to the sea and the surf and the sand. He initially worked as a sailor and then went to London to study cinema. His first dabble with the megaphone was Jago Hua Savera.
In an important way, Kardar’s brilliant piece of creativity was a turning point in not only the cinematic fortunes of East Bengal — which really had no money for the arts and was always subjugated culturally by the rich and powerful West Pakistan — but also that of the country as a whole. After the 1947 partition of the Indian sub-continent, the thriving film industry in Lahore shifted to what was then Bombay. Talent migrated, and Bombay became Maya Nagari, while the movie industry in Lahore floundered and perished. Jago Hua Savera came as a whiff of fresh air, injecting oxygen into Pakistan’s business of cinema. But the glory was not allowed to last by Pakistan’s military rulers, who saw a threat — real or imagined — in the emergence of cinema in their eastern wing, which boasted of several men of letters.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the number of films produced annually in Pakistan is well under 20, while India churns out about 1300. After, Jago Hua Savera, Pakistan did not submit anything for the Oscars till 1963 (Ghunghat). It was a long gap after that — till 2013, when the country sent Zinda Bhag.
Jago Hua Savera was a landmark work all right, and it is a pity that it will not be screened at Mumbai Film Festival.
A complaint has been registered at Amboli police station against the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star, where a Pakistani film will be screened later this month.
The Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star, which will begin from 20 October, will showcase the 1959 Pakistani film titled Jago Hua Savera, directed by AJ Kardar. The film is being screened in the fest’s ‘Restored Classics’ section, which is headed by Dhobi Ghat director Kiran Rao.
Prithvi Mhaske, who filed the complaint on Saturday, told IANS: “We have filed a complaint at Amboli police station against MAMI film festival which has plans to showcase a Pakistani film at the festival. Our intentions are very clear. We will protest against the festival if they showcase this film. We will be protesting outside Infinity Mall, where the event is taking place.”
Mhaske is the president of Sangharsh Foundation, an NGO in Mumbai.
In his letter to the police, Mhaske said: “The organisers of this event are more likely to flare outrage among people by screening this Pakistani film in their festival. This will just not be acceptable as it will give rise to more tension among the people. Moreover, IMPPA has also decided to ban Pakistani actors from working in Bollywood and also almost all single screen theatres have decided to boycott movies of Pakistani actors. So, why (are) the organisers of the Mumbai Film Festival pouring so much love towards Pakistani actors?”
Mhaske also told PTI, “If the organisers do not stop the film’s screening, my workers will stall (it).”
Senior PI with the Amboli Police Station Bharat Gaikwad said that he had received the complain from Mhaske, and had “summoned both the parties to go into the merits of the application”.
Over 180 films from 54 countries, including features, documentaries, short films are to be showcased at the Mumbai Film Festival.
Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn) depicts life in a small fishing village in East Bengal (now Bangladesh; then part of Pakistan). It was written by the poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and recently restored, with a screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
After the 18 September terrorist attack at the Uri army camp, relations between India and Pakistan have been strained. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had issued an ultimatum to Pakistani artistes to leave India and said the party would not let their movies release in India.
The Indian Motion Picture Producers Association passed a resolution banning Pakistanis from working in films being made in India as they were upset that many Pakistani artistes did not condemn the incident.
In retaliation, some Pakistani theatre chain owners banned the screening of Indian films.
Dasho Karma W Penjor, Hon’ble Secretary of Ministry of Information and Communications, Bhutan to lead a nine-member delegation to the Mumbai Film Festival. Jio MAMI with Star Film Festival, in its latest edition, will play host to a 9-member contingent from Bhutan. A versatile team comprising of important members of Department of Information and Media and members from the Bhutan Film Association will represent ‘The Land of the Thunder Dragon’ at the Festival. The objective of this invitation is to help enhance film industry in Bhutan and to engage with film makers, producers and directors to build-up collaborative arrangement and long-term professional working relationships.
Bhutan will also be represented at the festival by Khyentse Norbu’s newest film, ‘Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait’. It will be screened as part of the World Cinema category. In this Buddhist-themed, intriguing Bhutanese drama, a group of people don masks and come together in the woods for fifteen days of liberating and transgressive anonymity.
‘Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait’ by Khyentse Norbu
Khyentse Norbu is a Bhutanese Buddhist teacher and filmmaker who received worldwide fame in 1999 with his first film, ‘The Cup’.
The Jio MAMI with Star Film Festival has grown strongly with the collaboration from movie fanatics in Southeast Asia and Western filmmakers. It has an excellent mix of award-winning directors, emerging film-makers, experimental shorts, and documentaries. The festival will provide an opportunity for Bhutan to highlight the imaginative work of its filmmakers and resonating performances of its actors.
Festival Director, Jio MAMI with Star Film Festival, Anupama Chopra said, “Bhutan is one of my favorite places on the planet and it gives me great pleasure to have the Bhutanese delegation at our festival. It’s an honor for us. I hope this is the beginning of an enduring cultural exchange.”
The contingent will comprise of:
Mr. Dasho Karma W Penjor- The Honorable Secretary of Ministry of Information and Communications
Mr. Thinley Dorji- Librarian, Department of Information and Media
Mr. Phub Wangdi- Assistant Information and Media, Department of Information and Media
And members from the Bhutan Film Association:
Mr. Tashi Gyeltshen- Filmmaker
Mr. Thukten Yeshi- Film Writer & Director/ Consultant
Mr. Pema Rinzin- Filmmaker, Sound Designer, Editor, Cinematographer & Archer
If you are by any chance a film buff you’d be aware of your favourite time of the year – the 18th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. You’d also no doubt be really confused about what films to watch considering the sheer volume of amazing films put together by the lovely people of Jio MAMI.
Fret not. Listed below is a handy guide to make note of 15 films you should absolutely, under no circumstance, miss at the festival.
Under The Shadow
Director: Babak Anvari Country: Iran
By far the most exciting film at the fest, Babak Anvari’s film contains a mysterious spooky entitypestering a mother and her daughter during the fag end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. The film has been gathering some serious buzz ever since it premiered in Sundance back in January. It’s also UIK’s official entry to the Oscars — which bodes well for fans of intelligent horror cinema.
The Lure
Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska Country: Poland
Set in a Warsaw nightclub and full of weird lurid visuals, The Lure chronicles two mermaid sisters who arrive on land to explore the ‘human’ side of the world, and clash when they fall for the same human. Things get stranger when we discover the mermaids also have vampiric tendencies. The film created quite a buzz in Sundance where it won a Jury Prize.
Personal Shopper
Director: Oliver Assayas Country: France
It seems like this year’s MAMI has turned into the Fantastic Fest (what could possibly be better than that) because this is the third acclaimed horror film to watch out for. Oliver Assayas who totally bowled us over two years ago with The Clouds of Sils Maria is back with a spooky story with an undercurrent of social commentary.
Assayas’ regular Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, an assistant to a fashion mogul in Paris who contacts a spirit of some sort. Festival darling Assayas picked up the Best Director award at Cannes earlier this year.
Old Stone
Director: Johnny Ma Country: China
We know China can be a weird place, and debut director Johnny Ma explores yet another bizarre quirk of the country: if you help someone in a car accident and take him to the hospital, you are liable to pay their rehabilitation fees for the rest of their life. The protagonist of the film, a cab driver finds himself in such a scenario in a film that bagged Ma the award for the best debut film at the Toronto International Film Fest earlier this year.
Graduation
Director: Cristian Mungiu Country: Romania
Graduation puts 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days director Mungiu back to his roots – in the underbelly of Cluj. The film follows a surgeon who for some reason is a target by unknown pranksters, and whose daughter is mugged and assaulted on her way to her exams.
With handheld cameras, bleak blue tones, and the exploration of grassroots corruption, Mungiu’s latest has been heralded as a return to form for a filmmaker whose previous film Beyond the Hills was criticized for being too self indulgent. Mungiu bagged the Directors trophy at Cannes for this film.
Things To Come
Director: Mia Hansen Love Country:France
Fast emerging as one of the most exciting filmmakers of this generation, Hansen Love’s new film follows a 50 year old woman who needs to come to terms with dealing with life after a divorce. Hansen Love bagged the Silver Bear for Best Director in Berlin, but her amazing work in her previous film Eden is enough reason to be excited for this one.
My Life As A Courgette
Director: Claude Barras Country: Switzerland
Celine Sciamma who earlier wrote the magnificent Girlhood teams up with director Barras for a stop motion animation about a 9-year-old boy who is put in an orphanage after his alcoholic mother dies — for which he may or may not be responsible.
Elle
Director: Paul Verhoeven Country: France
The filmmaker behind some of the most nihilistic films of all time like Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers returns after years with Elle, another nasty takedown of the society we live in. This time the story follows a rich video game honcho named Michelle (Isabelle Huppert) who is attacked by a masked man at her Parisian home.
Like all Verhoeven’s previous films, Elle is supposed to present moral dilemmas with a satirical bite and a layer of icily dark commentary on sex, violence and, in this case, video games. It’s France official entry to the Oscars.
Sand Storm
Director: Elite Zexer Country: Israel
Winning the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, Elite Zexer’s film which is set in Southern Israel follows a Bedouin woman dealing with everyday sexism and not so casual misogyny of the region after her husband is about to be married to a second, much younger woman. That should be an interesting watch because it’s a topic that folks in India can unfortunately relate to all too well.
Hounds Of Love
Director: Ben Young Country: Australia
In case you’re looking for a serial killer movie, debut filmmaker Ben Young presents a highly intriguing one with Hounds of Love, which introduces us to a serial killer couple whose latest kidnapping victim realizes that the only way to escape is by getting the two psychos to turn against each other.
One other little aspect to convince you to see this film is that the many audience members at the Venice Film Festival walked out because they couldn’t stomach what was happening on the screen.
The War Show
Director: Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon Country: Syria – Denmark
The War Show is supposed to be a blistering account of the Arab Spring seen through the eyes of radio host Obaidah Zytoon who began filming the state of things during and after the protests.
The Lovers And The Despot
Director: Rob Cannan and Ross Adam Country: Britain
It’s pretty obvious how demented and scary North Korea is, and it seems there’s no dearth of bizarre stories to come out of the country. This documentary brings us the real life story of a filmmaker couple who was kidnapped by Kim Jong II and were forced to make films in the country because the great dictator was a film buff.
Lantouri
Director: Reza Dormishian Country: Iran
Yet another fascinating film from Iran, we’re taken through three intertwining stories: one which follows a gang of thugs that attacks and kidnaps young children from families that gained their wealth through financial wrongdoings, another which chronicles a journalist who is not allowed to voice his opinion and the third which follows a prostitute who turns into a thug.
Clash
Director: Mohamed Diab Country: Egypt
After garnering acclaim for his film Cairo 678, Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab is back with another interesting story that puts various characters in a single location – a police riot car during the raging bloody streets of Cairo when the Muslim brotherhood president Morsi was overthrown and the country went nuts.
After The Storm
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda Country: Japan
Like Father Like Son filmmaker Koreeda returns with another film with similar themes of isolation in the Japanese society. The film follows a writer struggling to live up to the success of his first novel and dealing with vices such as gambling and ego. While researching his next book he begins to spy on his ex wife who is now seeing another man. Reality hits him when he discovers that their son, in the custody of his mother is perfectly happy without him. The film has naturally received glowing reviews everywhere it’s screened.
The Salesman
Director: Asghar Farhadi Country: Iran
It’s Farhadi’s new film — that’s all you need to know.
Other Notable Mentions:
Swiss Army Man: A delightful tale of a suicidal man whose life is saved by a farting corpse.
The Wailing: Yet another engrossing watch from Korean maestro Hong Jin Na about a Korean village going through a turmoil after a Japanese man encroaches their territory.
Neruda: The new film from Pablo Larrain which has been garnering some terrific buzz.
Madly: A short anthology featuring directorial works fromAnurag Kashyap,Gael Garcia Bernal, Mia Wasikowska, Natasha Khan, Sion Sono and Sebastian Silva.
Death in Sarajevo: Danis Tanovic’s new film.
I, Daniel Blake: Festival darling Ken Loach’s latest which is sure to have insanely long lines – make sure you get to the screening hall early.
Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star introduces new programming this year called The New Medium. This section will feature the best in innovative filmmaking by scouring the living history of cinema – from its inception to the contemporary moment.
The New Medium is formulated and programmed by artist, Shaina Anand who is co-founder of the artist studio CAMP, and the Indian Cinema Foundation. These films will be screened throughout the festival, between 20th to 27th October, 2016. The New Medium will bring together works that have shaped and transcended the language of cinema in both form and content. Powerful and relevant at the time they were made, they remain transformative as experiences. These movies challenge the preconceptions of standard methods of filmmaking.
Speaking about The New Medium, curator and artist Shaina Anand said, “This programme is not just about experimental avant-garde cinema. The moving image has a very short historical life. Its only 125 years old and its form and language is far from exhausted. Some of the films we present here are canons. Others are cult classics, known only in small circles. Here you will find assemblage, agitprop, a film about a film, an essay film, a reenactment, a faux documentary, a music video, a science fiction fantasy, a TV-series, a collectively-authored film, a pure formal interactive experience, and even one of the longest films ever made! The New Medium invites the audience to experience first- hand these remarkable trajectories from the chronicles of cinema.”
The New Medium opens with the restored version of Dziga Vertov’s audacious Man with the Movie Camera that was made in 1929. In2014, Sight and Sound Magazine named it as the greatest documentary of all time. The film will be accompanied by a live score performed by the Vitaly Tkachuk Quartet joining us from Ukraine.
Among the 14 titles that will screen throughout the festival is Uday Shankar’s fantastical dance film, Kalpana (1948) restored by the World Cinema Foundation, Mani Kaul’s unseen mini-series “Ahamaq” (Idiot), and an iconic work of expanded cinema, the two-screen Light Music (1975) by Lis Rhodes that will be installed inside the cinema hall.
Jio MAMI with Star, Festival Chairperson, Kiran Rao said, “We are truly excited to present this new section -my personal favourite section! – which showcases some of the more bold and seminal experiments in filmmaking. I hope film lovers will take this opportunity to experience works like the newly restored Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by live music, and Lav Diaz’ Evolution of a Filipino Family, among others.”
The 14 movies that will be featured as part of The New Medium are:
Man with A Movie Camera
Directed by Dziga Vertov (RUSSIA 1929)
Accompanied by live music from the Vitaly Tkachuk Quartet
Kalpana
Directed by Uday Shankar (INDIA 1948)
For a first (and only) film by a dancer who also plays the lead role, Kalpana shows an amazing grasp of cinematic form. Uday Shankar‟s accurate compositions and use of movement within them are breathtakingly original. Here dance is not a mere addition to the other attractions of the film but it is integrated into the very fabric of what is
almost a new cinematic form.
Now!
Directed by Santiago Alvarez (CUBA 1965)
Preceding the music video genre by 20 years, and made mostly with still photographs, it is a visceral and haunting document of racism and police brutality in the United States.
Far from Vietnam
Directed by Joris Ivens, William Klein, Claude Lelouch, Agnès Varda, Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker and Alain Resnais (FRANCE 1967)
Seven of French cinemas greats come together to collectively author this film. Passionately critical and self-critical, and as bold in form as it is in rhetoric, the film is a milestone in political documentary and in the French cinema.
Vampir Cuadecuc
Directed by Pere Portabella (SPAIN 1971)
A parasitical film. A cult classic. Christopher Lee lends his features to another vampire, General Franco, hoping to hasten his end in this political fable.
Space is The Place
Directed by Johan Coney (USA 1974)
Science fiction, blaxploitation, cosmic free jazz and radical race politics combine when the legendary Jazz musician Sun Ra returns to earth in his music-powered space ship to battle for the future of the black race and offer an ‘alter-destiny’ to those who would join him.
Chhatrabhang
Directed by Nina Shivdasani Rovshen (INDIA 1976)
With a simple narrative that unravels in a direct yet poetic manner, Chhatrabhang‟ explores the caste dynamics of a drought stricken villagein rural India.
Light Music
Directed by Lis Rhodes (UK 1975)
The space between the two screens turns the beams into airy sculptural forms consisting of light, shadow and smoke, which encourages the viewer to move around the room. This in turns destroys conventional film watching codes and turns the film into a collective practice where the audience is expected to intervene into the work and thus, become the
performer. 16 mm Black and White 2 screen projection, with sound and fog. In
collaboration with British Council Mumbai, with technical support from Max Meuller Bhavan, Delhi. Lis Rhodes ‘Light Music’ can be described but only in order to be experienced. We present this iconic work of expanded cinema inside the cinema as part of The New Mediums programming.
Agraaharathil Kazhuthai
Directed by John Abraham (INDIA 1977)
Made as a satire on the Brahminical bigotry and superstition, the surreal narrative style makes excellent use of repetitions for comic effect.
Evolution of a Filipino Family
Directed by Lav Diaz (PHILIPINES 2004)
A special film and an especially long film. Watch the first independent film of the prolific and mutl-award winning Pillipino auteur Lav Diaz. Ten years in the making, and just as long. Follows the adventures of a family against the backdrop of the social and political developments in Marcos regime’s state of siege in the Philippines between 1971-1987.
Ahmaq
Directed by Mani Kaul (INDIA 1991)
Mani Kaul explores Dostoevsky’s novel faithfully following the original plot transposed into a scathing depiction of a feudal elite, largely bypassed by history, located in Bombay and Goa. The unedited mini-series presented back to back as a four-hour film. To discuss the film and how it was to work with Mani Kaul, we bring together key members of Kaul’s original cast and crew. They are:
Piyush Shah: Cinematographer, alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India
·
Vikram Joglekar: Sound artist, musician, alumnus of the Film and Television Institute of India
·
Meeta Vasisht: Actor, alumna of National School of Drama
·
Lalitha Krishna: Editor of all of Kaul’s films in the middle period, beginning with
Before My Eyes, and including The Cloud Door, Nazar, Siddheshwari and Ahamaq.
·
Ashish Rajadhyaksha: Film theorist and historian
·
D. Wood: multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and educator
Ming of Harlem
Directed by Philip Warnell (UK 2014)
The film explores the relations between Antoine (a US citizen), Ming (400 pound Bengal tiger), and Al (a 7-foot long American alligator) and the high-rise dwelling they shared, presenting portraits of each of them as embedded in ethically fraught community and political concerns, accompanied by philosopher and collaborator Jean-Luc Nancy’s responses to their inter-species rapport in poetic form.
Goodbye to Language
Directed by Jean Luc Godard (FRANCE 2014)
Godard‟s Experimental 3-D film plays with the conventions of stereo vision using custom made DIY rigs.
Parallel I-IV
Directed by Harun Farocki (GERMANY 2014)
Tracing the evolution of video game graphics, the series continues the late filmmaker’s long-standing investigation into the rise of calculable, actionable images possessing a relationship to reality very different than that of the cinema before them.
Jio MAMI with Star VISION 2016
The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star is an inclusive movie feast. We showcase the latest cutting-edge, independent, cinema-art house fare alongside genre movies from Bollywood and Hollywood and cult international movies. We offer the best of world cinema to the people of Mumbai and we offer the best of Indian cinema to the world. The festival
is run by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image popularly known as MAMI. This is a space where we revel in the sheer pleasure of cinema, the joy it gives us and how much it enhances our lives. The goal is to nurture and ignite a passion for movies. We want Jio MAMI with Star to be shorthand for excellence in cinema.
Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn) depicts life in a small fishing village in East Bengal (now Bangladesh; then part of Pakistan). It was written by the poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, and recently restored, with a screening at the Cannes Film Festival.
