Thursday, October 26, 2017

Learning Dispatch - October 27th 2017 - Notes from MAMI

The 19th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival was held in Mumbai from 12th to 18th October 2017. There were over 200 films being screened at over 18 screens around the city. 


These are some notes from the few films I got to watch at the festival this year. I have attached a link to the trailer for your reference and further exploration. 
  1. Thelma is a science fiction film about how a girl's super-natural powers to make people disappear affects her life
  2. Loveless is the story of a broken marriage in Russia and its repercussions on the neglected child of this failed relationship. 
  3. Redoubtable is a fictional depiction of the French Filmmaker Jean Luc Godard's relationship with his second wife who was much younger than him. 
  4. mother! is a psychological horror film about how a couple's relationship is disrupted when uninvited guests start arriving at their home. 
  5. Up, Down and Sideways is a film about a group of rice farmers in Nagaland who worked as a cooperative but had a tradition of singing love songs while farming in the field. 
  6. A Suitable Girl was my highlight of the festival. It is the story of three Indian women in their mid 20's. They are well educated but yet face a lot of pressure from their families to get married and settle down. The three women come from different geographic (Rajasthan and Mumbai) and professional backgrounds (Finance, Education, Marketing). But the struggle to choose between their family's expectation of them as daughters of the house and their own dreams and desires is a common theme that unites these three stories. 
I am glad Mumbai has its own film festival. I really enjoyed my time at the festival this year. I wish I could have seen a few more films. But I am glad I got to watch whatever I eventually got to watch. 

Abhishek 
October 27th, 2017