Last few years of Mumbai Film Festival have been wet dreams for any film buff. The game was simple – they picked up all the winners and nominees from all the top film festivals of the world. This year’s list is yet to be out but some titles have been confirmed. And going by these titles, it seems like they are on right track this year too.
- Among the big ones are Rust and Bone by Jacques Audiard (was in competition at Cannes), Walter Salles’ On The Road and Blancanieves (Snow White) by Pablo Bergera, a reinvention of the Brothers Grimm classic.
- Nandini Ramnath’s report in Mint Lounge has confirmed few more titles. This includes Michael Haneke’s Amour, David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis, Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share, Danish films A Royal Affair and The Hunt, Kauwboy and this year’s fest favourite Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild.
- Almost all the films have been doing the festival rounds. Amour won the Palme d’Or and Loach won the Jury prize at the Cannes film festival this year. A Royal Affair was in competition at the Berlin Film Festival and The Hunt was in competition at Cannes where its actor Mads Mikkelsen bagged the trophy for the best actor. Kauwboy bagged the best First Feature award at the Berlin Film Festival.
- Among the documentaries are Alison Klayman’s Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and Shivendra Singh Dungarpur’s Celluloid Man which we have been tracking for a long time. Klayman bagged a special jury prize at the Sundance Fest.
- There’s also going to be a long list of classics, black & white gems and silent films. Some of the confirmed titles are Franz Osten’s A Throw of Dice (1929), Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard (1963), Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America(1984), Dhundiraj Govind Phalke’s Kaliya Mardan, Osten’s Shiraz, Baburao Painter’s Muraliwala (1927) and Sati Savitri (1927), Robert Rossellini’s The Machine That Kills Bad People (1952), Visconti’s Senso (1954), Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Accattone (1961), Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (1970), Federico Fellini’s Roma (1972), Quo Vadis (1913), and Nanni Moretti’s Dear Diary (1993).
- Indiewire’s report has also confirmed few more titles which have been restored. The Twentieth Century Fox Archive will present 8 films spanning 40 years in the ‘Fox Classics’ series. This includes Sunrise (1928), How Green Was My Valley(1941), Laura (1944), Leave Her to Heaven(1945), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Wild River(1960), The Leopard and Two for the Road(1967).
- Seven other films which have been restored will also be screened. This includes Satyajit Ray’s Charulata(1964), The Chess Players (1977), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1945), Uday Shankar’s Kalpana (1948), Once Upon A Time In America and The Cineteca Bologna will present two silent Italian silent classics.
- Festival Dates : 18-25 October, 2012.
- Venue : NCPA and INOX. Can anyone confirm if Cinemax Versova will also have screenings or not?
- Shifting the venue to South Bombay is a strange decision when the film industry and related people seems to be mostly from suburbs. If you had been to Cinemax Versova for last year’s fest, you know the kind of crowd it attracted. And at the same time screenings at Metro and Cinemax Sion were going almost empty. I might be biased because Andheri (west) suits me best and travelling in Bombay is quite exhausting. So putting up a poll here.
F.i.g.h.t C.l.u.b 