The Backbone & Brain Behind Mumbai Film Festival Reveal The Challenges Of Organising An International Film Festival

On the eve of Mumbai Film Festival 2017, Anupama Chopra and Smriti Kiran reveal their thoughts and journey behind the success of Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. 

Anupama says, “It’s an exclusive festival and it has everything for a Bollywood buff to a cinema lover and everything in between. Nobody can say I’ll be bored.There’s a huge hunger for all kinds of movies.” 

Smriti Kiran Creative Director, Mumbai Film Festival says, “There are two things that work in our favour. First of all we don’t belong to this space. We are lovers of films. I have a background in TV, I’ve been a creative director and producer. Anu is an author and film critic, so one thing that we brought was perspective from other sides of the trenches.”

“Because we didn’t know how to do this, like in terms of how to run a film festival and how this ecosystem operates, because we’ve always covered film festivals,  we were very open to learning and listening to people. We knew it’s a non profit, but we also knew that it needs to be run with passion and professional proficiency. If you don’t do that then you never move the needle.” she adds. 

Smriti funnily explained that the problem that Indians have is that most of them are very romantic, and love the pyaaz aur roti kha lenge concept. 

Cinema lovers have  a huge advantage because Smriti says, “People don’t have to queue up for hours and tire themselves to watch a movie. That can be made easy. We had to earn he confidence of people who come for the festival.” 

Every year, Anupama and Smriti take all the feedback and logistically evaluate what can be improvised and incorporated into the festival. The 19th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival starts tomorrow, from 12 - 18 October with a tastefully designed line up of movie screenings from across the world, giving a platform to many people to showcase their talent.