Film festival of India

The 11th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF)—with a bouquet of 200 short films and documentaries from 40 countries — will take off on February 3 at the National Centre of Performing Arts, Nariman Point. The six-day festival, organised by the Films Division and the Maharashtra government, will showcase interesting works under special packages like science fiction, films on environment, climate change, films from north-east India and immigration issues.

The festival will host a number of interactive sessions, seminars and forums. The seminars will highlight topics like documentary culture, working environment for the documentary filmmaker, raising funds, changing style of acting, content in Indian Cinema. It will also have celebrity key speakers like Subhash Ghai, Javed Akhtar, Mahesh Manjrekar and Mike Pandey.

“While there have been several festivals in the city that screen international films, this annual event showcases short films exclusively,” says festival director Kuldeep Sinha. “Documentaries are the poor cousins of glamourous mainstream cinema. We don’t get as much support as they do, but we have seen the popularity of documentary films surge over the years,” he adds. It’s evident from the fact that the selection committee received over 800 entries this year.