It's time to welcome Mumbai's annual film festival organised by Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) again. Here are our picks from the movies being screened across the city between October 18 and 25
The 14th Mumbai Film Festival organised by MAMI will showcase a wide range of films and feature events, workshops and a competition titled India Gold 2012. The contest has been introduced this year in celebration of the 100 years of Indian Cinema.
One of the highlights is the two-day Pitching, Screenwriting and Script Development Masterclass which will commence on October 17 with a panel discussion on pitching stories.
The movies will be screened between October 18 and 25 at the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA) & Inox, Nariman Point, Liberty Cinemas, Marine Lines as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri and Cinemax Sion as the satellite venues.
For the schedule, log on to www.mumbaifilmfest.org
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The Angels Share (English)
If there is one English movie that should not be missed in this year’s edition of MAMI, then it is The Angel’s Share. For all its phonetic incongruence, owing to its Scottish setting, The Angel’s Share is probably the best English comedy you might never have seen. The movie is about Robbie, a serial belligerent and shoplifter, who is assigned to community service in a whiskey factory. It is here that he meets Harry a compassionate old man who instantly identifies Robbie’s raw talent — an olfactory sense adept at identifying and classifying whiskey. However, Robbie’s criminal streak resurfaces as he plans a heist to filch some of the rarest malts in the factory. What ensues is a chain of hilarious events, aggravated by the sheer ridiculousness of the Scottish accent. Director, Ken Loach’s style of suctioning spontaneous and realistic performances is at its masterful best here. His recurring theme of British poverty and its recurring dance with crime and malapropos justice plays out in a characteristic light hearted vein.
At: October 23, 10 am, Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA
Aamour (love) (french)
Amour is the story of Georges and Anna, a married couple well into their 80s leading a tender and charmingly redundant existence. Very early into the film, director Michael Haneke shows us where the story is headed — to a grim room where Anna’s body lies, bereft of a care in the world, and very near lifeless. From an octogenarian with grace and verve, Anna’s inexorable decline to inertness tugs at the very core of the couple’s relationship as Georges tends to her, meticulously, pushing himself to the limits of what his mind and his heart can permit. Haneke has a penchant for the portrayal of themes of muted agony. The imagery in his films is often bleak and sometimes disturbing. Amour is a significantly warmer endeavour on the filmmaker’s part but is hardly an exception to the rule. Winner of the Palm D’Or at the 2012 Cannes film festival, Amour is an ode to love, one which strips bare the grim reality of the loosely used phrase of ‘growing old together’.
At:u00a0u00a0October 21, 12.30 pm, Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA
Jjagten (the hunt) (danish)
Thomas Vinterberg shot to international prominence with his Dogme classic, Festen, a movie which delves into the stridulous theme of child abuse. The Hunt is a sort of a ‘flipside’ depiction of the theme, dwelling on the ramifications of a false accusation of the same crime. A kindergarten teacher by profession, Lucas is the member of a small town deer hunting posse, who apart from this indulgence is a completely innocuous chap. Klara the daughter of Lucas’s closest friend, Theo develops an innocent crush on him and Lucas is forced to gently rebuff her. However Klara does not take too kindly to Lucas’s rejection and lies about Lucas’s sexual advances towards her. What follows is a maelstrom of public chastising as Lucas is ostracised and attacked by his community. Intense and brutal, The Hunt is equal parts riveting and disturbing and it benefits from the formidable performances of Mads Mikkelsen as Lucas and Annika Wedderkopp as Klara.
At:u00a0u00a0October 22, 6 pm, Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA
Like someone in love (Japanese)
The plot of Like Someone in Love revolves around two people — a student, Akiko who is paying for her education through prostitution and her client, an old man, Takashi. The day after they meet, Takashi drives her over to her college where she has to meet her fiancé. Akiko’s fiancé mistakes him for Akiko’s grandfather and Takashi is more than happy to play the part. It would be easy to mistake Like Someone in Love as one of Yasujiro Ozu’s weaker films. As it turns out, it is actually a Japanese film that comes from the most unlikely of sources, Persian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami. Constructed as an ‘isolated twin settled in another land’ of his earlier film Certified Copy (set in Tuscany), Like Someone in Love is not quite as intellectual or rigorous but is just as rich in texture. It is mellifluous, engaging but never tensile in theme or concept, choosing to drift and aimlessly intertwine with the audience, much like the characters within it. An almost spiritual watch, this is.
At: October 22, 12.45 pm, Cinemax, Versova
Some other movies to watch out for
>> Stories We Tell directed by Sarah Polley (Canada)
October 19, 10 am, Inox, Nariman Point
>>u00a0On The Road directed by Walter Salles (France-Brazil)
October 19, 10 am, Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA
>>u00a0Rust & Bone (De rouille et d’os) directed by Jacques Audiard (France-Belgium)
October 20, 6 pm, Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, NCPA
>>u00a0Captive directed by Brillante Mendoza (France-Philippines-Germany-UK)
October 21, 12.30 pm, Inox, Nariman Point
>>u00a0You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet directed by Alain Resnais (France-Germany)
October 22, 10 am, Inox, Nariman Point
>>u00a0Cosmopolis directed by David Cronenberg (France-Canada-Portugal-Italy)
October 22, 3.45 pm, Cinemax, Versova
>>u00a0Beyond The Hills (Dupa Dealuri) directed by Cristian Mungiu (Romania-France-Belgium)
October 24, 12.45 pm, Cinemax, Versova
>>u00a0Children Of Sarajevo (Djeca) directed by Aida Begic (Bosnia-Herzegovina-Germany-France-Turkey)
October 25, 4 pm, Liberty Cinema
>>u00a0Me and You (Io e Te) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci (Italy)
October 24, 8 pm, Cinemax, Sion
>>u00a0Gebo And The Shadow (Gebo et l’ombre) directed by Manoel de Oliveira (Portugal-France)
October 23, 10.15 am, Cinemax, Versova
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