The 20th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival will soon be upon us and the city’s movie lovers can’t contain their excitement. If you aren’t aware, the annual festival is a sort of pilgrimage for cinephiles of all colours, a time when Mumbai becomes a Mecca for the latest and greatest of cinema from all across the world as well as back home.
Join us as we take a look at this year’s programme and give you an idea of what you should look out for. Today, we start with the international sections of the festival.
Before we move to our picks from the lineup, let’s get the obvious titles out of the way first. New films from Nuri Bilge Ceylan (The Wild Pear Tree), the Coen brothers (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Jafar Panahi (3 Faces), Zhang Yimou (Shadow) or Jia Zhangke (Ash is the Purest White) are and should be on everyone’s list. Then there are festival favourites like Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters which won the Palme D’Or at Cannes, Paul Schrader’s brilliant First Reformed or the Kenyan queer romance Rafiki which actually upturned a ban in its home country.
But with over 50 films in the World Cinema section alone, it’s easy to miss out on a lot of gems. Therefore, in this list we will focus on the special, the unique and the under-the-radar films that you should catch at MAMI. Let’s begin.
High Life
Director Claire Denis has a very specific fan following even if she isn’t mentioned in the same breath as many French masters. Which is a shame, because Denis brings a uniquely skewed perspective to age-old genres. Here she takes on the space sci-fi epic, with some mind-bending results. Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche star in Denis’ first English language film.
Roma
Yes, this is one of the obvious ones but we couldn’t help include it here. Alfonso Cuarón returns after the ground breaking success of Gravity for a more personal film, apparently based on his own childhood in Mexico. Roma won the Golden Lion at this year’s Venice Film Festival and from all reports could be the movie of the year.
Burning
Director Lee Chang-dong is known for dramas like Poetry but here he makes something close to a slow-burning (sorry) thriller that is provocative and gut-wrenching. It’s better to know as little as you can about this one. Korean-American actor Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead) features.
Madeline’s Madeline
Josephine Decker’s Madeline’s Madeline is a one-of-a-kind film that throws you off the deep end without any rafters. It deals with tricky questions of performance vs reality and when performance becomes exploitative of the artist. A sure-to-be cult experience.
Non-Fiction
Director Olivier Assayas is one of the most exciting contemporary French directors and here he reteams with his Clouds of Sils Maria star Juliette Binoche. The film is a intimate comedy dealing with themes of old media versus the new.
MATANGI / MAYA / M.I.A.
This documentary on controversial musician and activist M.I.A. is bound to be the one of the highlights of the festival. Drawn from a never before seen cache of personal footage spanning decades, this is an intimate portrait of the Sri Lankan singer who continues to shatter conventions.
Diamantino
One of the breakout hits at Cannes this year, this genre-bending trip is unlike anything else. An outlandish and ingenuous political comedy on the world of football and gigantic long-haired dogs that portrays the nation in dire need of heroes.
Border
Another hidden gem from Cannes, this Un Certain Regard prize winner is bizarre, bonkers and beautiful at the same time. This twisty, visceral, fantasty-drama comes from Let the Right One In writer John Ajvide Lindqvist. Again, the less you know about this one, the better.
Climax
A celebration of young dancers turns into a hallucinatory nightmare when they learn that their sangria is laced with LSD. Director Gaspar Noé can be hit or miss, especially when he gets too carried way with his provocateur ways. Climax seems to be a stylish and sexy return to form.
An Elephant Sitting Still
This electrifying directorial debut from Hu Bo, whose novels have already caused a sensation in China, is a four-hour portrait of a society of egoists. Tragically, the artist took his own life at age 29, before the film saw the light of day.
Birds of Passage
Embrace of the Serpent director Ciro Guerra’s new film is set during the violent 1970s ‘marijuana bonanza’ in Colombia. When greed, passion and honour collide, a fratricidal war breaks out that puts lives, culture and ancestral traditions at stake.
Too Late to Die Young
No film festival is complete without a special coming-of-age tale. The second feature from Daminga Sotomayor is at once nostalgic and piercing, a portrait of a young woman—and a country—on the cusp of exhilarating and terrifying change.
A Paris Education
Hear us out, A Paris Education is one of the best films of the year so far and is poised to become a cult classic. This black & white ode to the French New Wave is also tongue-in-cheek and sensitive enough to make it feel fresh. You’re going to see a lot of screenshots from this one on film forums.
In Fabric
Peter Strickland is one of the most distinct ‘genre’ voices out there, to the point that it almost feels an insult to call him that. His films are hard to pin down. Here he tells something of a horror story that follows a cursed dress as it passes from person to person with devastating consequences. Yes please!
Thunder Road
Thunder Road follows a Texan police officer who loses his Mother, custody of his daughter, and eventually his job. Inspired by one of the greatest songs ever written, we see officer Jim Arnaud apply this lullaby of his Mother's to his life during his ongoing and often hilarious nervous breakdown.
House of My Fathers
This powerful Sri Lankan debut is a surreal and disturbing tale centred on two divided villages in a civil war where women are unable to conceive and a remedy is desperately sought. Suba Sivakumaran is a filmmaker to watch out for.
In My Room
Armin, in his fourties, is a freelancer with lots of time and little money. He’s not really happy, but can’t picture living a different life. One morning the world looks the same as always, but mankind has disappeared. Now that’s a plot we’re completely on board with!
Wildlife
Acclaimed actor Paul Dano (There Will Be Blood) makes his directorial debut starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan. The period relationship drama has been receiving raves ever since it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Do we even need to say more?
Transit
Christian Petzold is something of a low-key, underrated master. His last feature, Phoenix, was one of the best films of the decade; a thoughtful take on trauma and the Holocaust that stood out among countless others. From all accounts Transit is another deep-cutting masterpiece.
The Image Book
It’s Godard, duh! Jean-Luc continues the late avante-garde phase of his career with a passion project on fact and fiction to explore the contemporary Arab world, having shot for nearly two years in various countries across the region.
The 20th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star runs from 25 October to 1 November. Here are our picks from the Indian films playing at the festival.
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