Unsaid Words and Said Silences

A Film Carnival

It was a nostalgic moment when I wore the 15th Mumbai Film Festival delegate badge around my neck. Just 4 years back, I was part of the Young Critics Jury of the 11^th Mumbai International Film Festival, MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images). The experience was enriching and refreshing. It’s a spectrum of diverse cultures, art,human sensibilities of dealing with issues, interpretations and deeper human connections.

Watching films has always been a visual treat for me. As a child I always believed that Bollywood was the only film industry in the world. I was so wrong!  The realization of films being made in other parts of the world hit me when I attended MAMI. There are number of factors which determine your exposure to the world while growing up. I was fortunate enough that I didn’t miss it and it found a way to reach me. I fell in love with world cinema and enlightened myself with a more profound definition to cinema. It was the best thing which happened to me while choosing my goal. I found my rhythm in films.

Coming back from the memory lane of my association with MAMI, I was really excited to attend the festival this year. There were some really good films being screened this year. “Blue Is The Warmest Color” by Abdellatif Kechiche, “Before Midnight” by Richard Linklator, “Ilo Ilo by Anthony Chen, and many more. The cherry on the cake this year was the number of Indian films leading the brigade of good films. To name a few Indian films who stole the limelight was “Fundry” by Nagraj Manjule (Marathi Film), “Monologue (Maunraag) by Vaibhav Abnave, “Bakrapur (The Goat Vote) by Janaki Vishwanathan, “Sulemani Keeda” by Amit V Masurkar and many more.

I managed to watch few of them and was completely awestruck by the canvas of those films. You need a certain kind of intellectual and emotional stability to connect to the deeper meaning of the film. The film Monologue by Vaibhav Abnave is spectacular not because it is a good film but I just couldn’t decode it. The characters seem all real but the flow of events were disconnected from each other and yet it made lot of sense. There was something really unique about the film. The style of film making was different too. Something like this can only be experienced in a film festival. A certain kind of audience is present at film festivals. Film fanatics, people from the film industry and a general audience with a different taste in cinema..

From a Young critic jury member to a film delegate, nothing has changed when it comes to MAMI. I missed   the festival for the last three years due to my shooting commitments but this year I made it a point to attend it. The delegate badge is stil