13th Mumbai Film Festival all set to rock!

The 13th Mumbai Film Festival announced an impressive line-up of about 200 films under various sections. The announcement was made earlier today at a press conference chaired by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) chairman, Shyam Benegal, Amit Khanna, Shabana Azmi, Ashutosh Gowarikar, and MFF director Srinivasan Narayanan.

Shyam Benegal announced that the Brad Pitt starrer ‘Moneyball’ will be the opening film at the festival and Morgan Freeman starrer ‘Dolphin Tale’ will be the closing film. The spectacular list of films that will have their India premieres, include the highly talked about ‘Melancholia’, directed by Lars Von Tier, ‘The Whistle Blower’ starring Rachel Weiz, George Clooney’s ‘The Ides of March’ and ‘Pina’ directed by Wim Wenders amongst many others.  Announcing this line up of movies, Shyam Benegal, said, “A feast of films awaits one at the 13th Mumbai Film Festival. We are extremely proud of the fact that Mumbai Film Festival is fast getting recognised to be the best international film festival in this country.”

In addition to impressive list of films being screened under the non-competitive sections of the festival, an equally powerful list of films will compete under the three competition sections; International Competition for the First Feature Films of Directors, Dimensions Mumbai and Harmony Celebrate Age for a total of USD 200,000, which will be awarded to the winning films as prize money. Srinivasan Naryanan, Festival Director, 13th Mumbai Film Festival said, “This year the selection committee had its task cut out for them. They had to choose from over 800 films to finally zero down on such a closely competitive line-up.”

An eminent panel of international jury members, including Hugh Hudson (Jury president, international competition), Roger Spottiswoode,  Jerzy Skolimowski, Na-Hong Jin along with Indian Jury members Basu Chatterjee (Jury president, Celebrate age), Kiran Rao (Jury president, Dimension Mumbai), Onir, Nishikant Kamat, Sushasini Mulay, Renuka Shahane, Mukesh Bhatt, Avantika Akerkar, Vikramaditya Motwane will adjudge the winning films under the various competition sections.

The 13th MFF will pay tribute to cinematic legends Shammi Kapoor, MF Hussain and Mani Kaul with a special screening of their works. Additionally, a film retrospective of Jury President, Hugh Hudson’s works will be screened, including ‘Revolution Revisited’ and ‘I Dreamed of Africa’ amongst others. Noted poet, lyricist, script writer and director, Gulzar will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 13th Mumbai Film Festival.

In addition to screening cinematic masterpieces, the festival year will screen the best of Cannes Critics Week winning films and Debut features that won the National Film Awards, spanning the last 50 years. Certainly grown to become a crucial cultural event, the Mumbai Film Festival has grown bigger and better.