A group of 17 filmmakers have penned an open letter addressed to MAMI chairperson and actor Priyanka Chopra, and the organisers of the Mumbai Film Festival, urging for physical screenings of their films, some of which have been waiting for two years to have their Indian premieres at the event.
“We do not need extravagant organisation, awards, or ceremonies but only reasonable slots, where audiences across Mumbai can come and watch our films in the theatre,” read the letter, accessed by Silverscreen India.
The 2020 edition of the Mumbai’s MAMI Film Festival was cancelled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the festival’s 22nd edition, which was originally scheduled for November 2021, was tentatively postponed to March 11-15, 2022.
However, as per the letter, the filmmakers received an email from the organisers of the festival, earlier this month, stating that it had become untenable to conduct the event in March due to ‘continuing pandemic, logistical and financial challenges’.
The directors, whose films were selected for screening in the India Story, Spotlight, and India Gold sections of the festival, expressed their disappointment over this in their open letter.
“Some of us were officially selected in the 2020 edition, and had saved our India premieres for two years, waiting for this festival! Others had turned down multiple other festivals in India in favour of MAMI. Some of us had paid submission fees to MAMI. Most of us were counting on the festival to give our films visibility and a unique opportunity to share them with audiences, the industry and market, as most of our films will not get distribution in the way commercial films do. None of us have a plan for how to proceed now,” they wrote.
The letter further noted that many of them had agreed to MAMI’s proposal to include their films in an Official Selection announcement and a two-day digital screening window in February or March, owing to the prestige attached to MAMI. However, the view towards these digital screenings was mixed, they added. “Either way, this offer did not address our concerns with the fate of our films, or our feeling of discontent with the manner and timing of this decision.”
The open letter also mentioned that a request from the filmmakers to meet with the organisers to discuss other alternatives was ignored.
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The signatories of the letter are Achal Mishra (Dhuin), Aditya Vikram Sengupta (Once Upon A Time In Calcutta), Faraz Ali (Shoebox), Gurvinder Singh (Adh Chanani Raat), Haobam Paban Kumar (Nine Hills One Valley), Himadri Mahesh (Abharkha), Irfana Majumdar (Shankar’s Fairies), Natesh Hegde (Pedro), Nithin Lukose (PAKA), Payal Kapadia and Ranabir Das (A Night of Knowing Nothing) Prantik Basu (Bela), Rahat Mahajan (Meghdoot), Rahul Jain (Invisible Demons), Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, and Srishti Lakhera and Bhamati Sivapalan (Ek Tha Gaon).
It may be noted that apart from the aforementioned films, Ajitpal Singh’s debut feature film, Fire in the Mountains, was also awaiting its Indian premiere at MAMI. The film, which premiered at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival, was recently acquired by Kino Lorber for distribution in the US, but uncertainty looms over its release in India.