11th Mumbai International Film Festival Diaries: Day 2
The 11th Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films took off with an almost packed house last evening. And for the next few days, there will be a packed schedule of films on a mind boggling variety of subjects.
But the objective of a festival is not just to keep track of new work from all across the globe, but also to rediscover the films made in the past. For instance, in the screening schedule, is a package of films titled Treasure from NFAI (National Film Archive) and a film called Brick Layingu00a0 made by Dadasaheb Phalke himself. And there are films by another early pioneer, J B H Wadia.
It's amazing how many films there are, on Cinema Legends. Just watching films on Ashok Kumar, B N Sirkar, B R Chopra, Bhalji Pendharkar, Sukhdev, Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Harindra-nath Chattopadhyay, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Nargis, and the musical greats likeu00a0 K L Saigal, Rafi, Mahendra Kapoor. Manna Dey, Kavi Pradeep, Mubarak Begum, Naushadu00a0-- there are 31 films in all, enough to give anyone a perfect overview of Indian cinema.
There are nine films in the Remembering Freedom Fighters package, ten films from various countries just Celebrating Gender Equality,u00a0 seven films on the environment, six science fiction films. Packages of student films from major film Institutes in the country give an idea of what youngsters are thinking.
And apart from the many films in Competition, there is a wonderful lot of films that are winners from other Festivals. Can it get better than this?
--u00a0Deepa Gahlot
(Watch this space for updates)
