After kicking off this year’s New York Film Festival last week, David Fincher’s critically lauded “The Social Network,” will open the 12th annual Mumbai Film Festival (MFF), which this year boasts a crop of a whopping 200 films from 58 countries.A number of films on this year’s lineup have found great success at other festivals. These include Golden Lion winner “Somewhere” from director Sofia Coppola; Semih Kaplanoglu’s “Honey” (Bal) which was awarded with the Gold Bear at this year’s Berlinale; Abbas Kiarostami’s Cannes winner “Certified Copy”; and Lee Chang-dong’s “Poetry,” also a winner at Cannes.
This year’s edition is divided into nine sections, including Above the Cut, which will present 14 first feature films from first time directors. Cash awards totaling in $150,000 will be awarded in this series. Other sections at MFF include World Cinema; Indian Frame, which will showcase a selection of Indian cinema made within the past year; New Faces in Indian Cinema, a brand new initiative which will screen first and second feature films from Indian filmmakers; Celebrate Age, a new competition section in which short fiction films, documentaries and features all concern the journey of growing older; and Celebration of Japanese Cinema, a collection of 35MM prints of 43 classic and contemporary Japanese films.
In addition to the films on the docket, MIFF will honor Oliver Stone with an International Lifetime Achievement Award, and noted Indian film-actor-director-screenwriter-producer Manoj Kumar with the Indian Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jury members at MFF, on the fest’s all-woman jury, include director Jane Campion (“Bright Star”), BAFTA Award-winning producer Tanya Seghatchian (“My Summer of Love”), Iranian filmmaker Samira Maknmalbaf, star of “Poetry” Yoon Jeong-Hee, and National Film Award-winning Indian actor Suhasini Maniratnam.
