Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2023 Lineup Announced: Palme d’Or winner ‘Anatomy of a Fall,’ Koreeda’s ‘Monster,’ Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ & Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Kennedy’ feature

The 2023 Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival has unveiled its highly anticipated lineup, featuring an impressive selection of more than 250 films to be showcased over the course of 10 exciting days, spanning from October 27 to November 5. This carefully curated program boasts a staggering array of cinematic treasures, including over 40 world premieres, 45 Asia premieres, and an astounding 70+ South Asia premieres. The festival set a new record with an overwhelming 1,000+ submissions for its South Asia program, reflecting the growing interest and talent emerging from this dynamic region.

This year’s festival is dedicated to highlighting contemporary films and emerging voices in South Asian cinema, making it a significant platform for both established and up-and-coming filmmakers. The competitive section, in particular, promises to be a showcase for breakthrough contemporary South Asian films, with 14 entries hailing from debutant and second-time filmmakers from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, as well as from the diaspora in the UK and Germany.

Additionally, the festival’s non-competition section offers a great collection of South Asian cinema, featuring 46 films (comprising 22 features and 24 non-features). This diverse selection provides a captivating glimpse into the multifaceted cultural landscape of South Asia, with contributions from countries such as Myanmar, Bangladesh, and Nepal, as well as thought-provoking diaspora perspectives from Australia, Germany, the USA, the UK, Poland, and Spain.

This year’s festival promises to be a celebration of storytelling diversity and an opportunity to discover the unique cinematic voices that make South Asian and international cinema truly exceptional.

The press conference, held at the prestigious Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) in Mumbai, was graced by the presence of the festival’s esteemed board members. An illustrious lineup featuring Anupama Chopra, Farhan Akhtar, Rana Daggubati, Siddharth Roy Kapur, Vikramaditya Motwane, Zoya Akhtar, Rohan Sippy, and Ajay Bijli came together to unveil a meticulously curated selection of the finest works in global and South Asian cinema.

Within the World Cinema section of the festival, cinephiles can anticipate a captivating showcase of over 90 titles hailing from more than 35 different countries. This thoughtfully selected roster encompasses some of the most buzzed-about films from this year’s international festival circuit. Highlights include the Palme d’Or-winning masterpiece “Anatomy of a Fall” by the talented Justine Triet, Bradley Cooper’s much-anticipated Oscar-contender “Maestro,” and the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award recipient, “Beyond Utopia” by the gifted filmmaker Madeleine Gavin.

Among the other remarkable titles in this impressive lineup are Pedro Costa’s “The Daughters of Fire,” Hirokazu Kore-eda’s “Monster,” Hong Sang-soo’s “In Our Day,” Pedro Almodóvar’s “Strange Way of Life,” Ken Loach’s “The Old Oak,” Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” and Alice Rohrwacher’s “La Chimera.” This diverse array of cinematic gems promises an enriching and captivating experience for festival-goers, celebrating the art of filmmaking on a global scale.

The titles announced to be a part of the 2023 MAMI lineup are as follows; please note that the 2023 MAMI Lineup includes all sections that will be a part of the festival:

South Asia Competition:

This is a dynamic segment of the festival, where we proudly present 14 groundbreaking contemporary films from South Asia, spanning a rich tapestry of languages and cultures.

The section includes:

• “Mithya” by Sumant Bhat
• “Barir Naam Shahana (A House Named Shahana)” by Leesa Gazi
• “The Red Suitcase” by Fidel Devkota
• “Against the Tide” by Sarvnik Kaur
• “Agra” by Kanu Behl,
• “Bahadur – The Brave” by Dina Shah
• “Dilli Dark” by Dibakar Das Roy
• “Guras” by Saurav Rai
• “Which Colour? (Kayo Kayo Colour?)” by Shahrukhkhan Chavada
• “Rapture (Rimdogittanga)” by Dominic Sangma
• “Shivamma” by Jaishankar Aryar
• “A Match (Steal)” by Jayant Somalkar
• “The Sentence (Thadavu)” by Fazil Razak,
• “The Monk and the Gun” by Pawn Choyning Dorji

Focus South Asia: 

In this exclusive showcase, the festival presents a curated selection of 46 films celebrating the South Asian Diaspora. These films encompass a diverse array of films with varied languages, storytelling techniques, and artistic forms. Through this collection, MAMI wants to shine a spotlight on the extraordinary talent within South Asia and its diaspora while also emphasizing the abundance of narratives that collectively define the South Asian experience.

The section includes:

• “All India Rank” by Varun Grover
• “Pushtaini” by Vinod Rawat
• “Stolen” by Karan Tejpal,
• “Mai” by Milin Dhamade
• “A Bleak Home“
• “Ghaath (Ambush)” by Chhatrapal Ninawe
• “And, Towards Happy Alleys” by Sreemoyee Singh
• “Bailadila”
• “Before Spring”
• “Between Us”
• “Companion”
• “Dear Latika”
• “Dentures”
• “Evening Clouds”
• “Farther than Distance”
• “Flowering Man”
• “Follower”
• “Foreigners Only”
• “Four Slippers”
• “Golden Land Fantasy”
• “Goodbye, Hello”
• “Helena”
• “Inheritance”
• “Kamathipura”
• “Melody Day”
• “Nehemich”
• “Riders on the Storm”
• “Slow Shift”
• “Sultana’s Dream”
• “’The Altar”
• “The Awakening”
• “The Blessed and The Damned”
• “The Flamingos And Other Migratory Birds Tour”
• “The Gaze”
• “The Last Fragment”
• “The Play”
• “The Scavenger of Dreams”
• “The Spark”
• “Thirty”
• “This Is Us”
• “Today Me, Tomorrow You”
• “While We Watched”
• “White Ant”
• “Windhorse”
• “XO”

Icons South Asia:

A section dedicated to featuring iconic films from South Asian talent.

The section includes:

• “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” by Anand Patwardhan
• “Indi(r)a’s Emergency” by Vikramaditya Motwane
• “Paradise” by Prasanna Vithanage
• “Something Like an Autobiography” by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki
• “A Road to a Village” by Nabin Subba
• “Animating the Archive: Short Films” by Amit Dutta
• “The Golden Thread” by Nishtha Jain
• “Trolley Times”

Gala Premier:

This section will unveil a selection of the most ambitious Indian films of the year.

The section includes:

• “Kennedy” by Anurag Kashyap
• “Sharmajee ki Beti” by Tahira Kashyap
• “Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa” by Rajat Kapoor
• “Berlin”
• “Joram” by Devashish Makhija
• “Yellow Bus” by Wendy Bednarz

World Cinema:

The World Cinema section of the JIO MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2023 Lineup is renowned for bringing some of the most ambitious movies from across the globe.

• “20 Days in Mariupol” by Mstyslav Chernov
• “20,000 Species of Bees” by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
• “Absence”
• “Adagio” by Stefano Sollima
•  “Afire” by Christian Petzold
• “Anatomy of a Fall” by Justine Triet
• “Anselm” by Wim Wenders
• “Art College 1994” by Jian Liu
• “Beyond Utopia” by Madeleine Gavin
• “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry” by Elene Naveriani
• “Bye Bye Tiberias” by Lina Soualem
• “Celluloid Underground” by Ehsan Khoshbakht
• “City of Wind” by Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir
• “Close to Vermeer” by Suzanne Raes
• “Club Zero” by Jessica Hausner
• “Daaaaaali! ” by Quentin Dupieux
• “Dario Argento Panic” by Simone Scafidi
• “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World” by Radu Jude
• “Dormitory” by Nehir Tuna
• “Earth Mama” by Savanah Leaf
• “Explanation for Everything” by Gábor Reisz
• “Fallen Leaves” by Aki Kaurismäki
• “Family Time” by Tia Kouvo
• “Foremost by Night” by Víctor Iriarte
• “Four Daughters” by Kaouther Ben Hania
• “Fremont” by Babak Jalali
•  “God Is a Woman” by Andres Peyrot
• “Grace” by Ilya Povolotsky
• “Green Border” by Agnieszka Holland
• “Here” by Bas Devos
• “Hesitation Wound” by Selman Nacar
• “Hoard” by Luna Carmoon
• “Housekeeping for Beginners” by Goran Stolevski
• “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” by Ariane Louis-Seize
• “If Only I Could Hibernate” by Zoljargal Purevdash
• “In Our Day” by Hong Sang-soo
• “In the Rearview” by Maciek Hamela
• “Inshallah a boy” by Amjad Al Rasheed
• “Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell” by Thien An Pham
• “Kidnapped” by Marco Bellocchio
• “Kokomo City” by D. Smith
• “La Chimera” by Alice Rohrwacher
• “Les Indésirables” by Ladj Ly
• “Love Is A Gun” by Lee Hong-chi
• “Maestro” by Bradley Cooper
• “Man in Black” by Wang Bing
• “Menus Plaisirs – Les Troisgros” by Frederick Wiseman
• “Milisuthando” by Milisuthando Bongela
• “Monster” by Hirokazu Koreeda
• “Music” by Angela Schanelec
• “Nowhere Near” by Miko Revereza
• “Oasis of Now” by Chee Sum Chia
• “Orlando, My Political Biography” by Paul B. Preciado
• “Our Body” by Claire Simon
• “Perfect Days” by Wim Wenders
• “Pictures of Ghosts” by Kleber Mendonça Filho
• “Remembering Every Night” by Yui Kiyohara
• “Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus” by Neo Sora
• “Sara” by Jessica Hinkson
• “SCALA!!! ”
• “Short Story”
• “Slow” by Marija Kavtaradze
• “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” by Anna Hints
• “Solids by the Seashore” by Patiparn Boontarig
• “Solo” by Sophie Dupuis
• “Strange Way of Life” by Pedro Almodóvar
• “Sweet Dreams” by Ena Sendijarevic
• “Terrestrial Verses” by Ali Asgari, Alireza Khatami
• “The Animal Kingdom” by Thomas Cailley
• “The Battle”
• “The Beast” by Bertrand Bonello
• “The Book of Solutions” by Michel Gondry
• “The Breaking Ice” by Anthony Chen
• “The Burdened” by Amr Gamal
• “The Castle” by Martín Benchimol
• “The Contestant” by Clair Titley
• “The Daughters of Fire” by Pedro Costa
• “The Delinquents” by Rodrigo Moreno
• “The Feeling That The Time for Doing Something Has Passed” by Joanna Arnow
• “The Mother of All Lies” by Asmae ElMoudir
• “The New Boy” by Warwick Thornton
• “The Old Oak” by Ken Loach
• “The Pot-au-Feu” by Anh Hung Tran
• “The Practice” by Martín Rejtman
• “The Rye Horn” by Jaione Camborda
• “The Settlers” by Felipe Gálvez Haberle
• “The Siren” by Sepideh Farsi
• “The Summer with Carmen” by Zacharias Mavroeidis
• “The Sweet East” by Sean Price Williams
• “The ‘The Dreamer” by Anaïs Tellenne
• “They Shot The Piano Player” by Javier Mariscal, Fernando Trueba
• “Tiger Stripes” by Amanda Nell Eu
• “Tótem” by Lila Avilés
• “Un Amor” by Isabel Coixet
• “Vincent Must Die” by Stéphan Castang
• “Voyages en Italie” by Sophie Letourneur
• “Where the Road Leads” by Nina Ognjanovic
• “White Plastic Sky” by Tibor Bánóczki, Sarolta Szabó
• “Youth (Spring)” by Wang Bing

After Dark:

Curated by Jongsuk Thomas Nam, the After Dark section in the MAMI 2023 lineup features some of the most buzzing titles and the best genre films from around the world.

The section includes:

• “Amilam”
• “Dead Enders” by Fidel Ruiz-Healy, Tyler Walker
• “Dream Scenario” by Kristoffer Borgli
• “Innermost”
• “Late Night With the Devil” by Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes
• “Mermaid”
• “Night of the Bride”
• “Nude”
• “Oldboy” by Park Chan-wook
• “Raging Grace” by Paris Zarcilla
• “Sweet Juices” by  Sejon Im, Will Suen
• “The Invisible Fight” by Rainer Sarnet
• “The Seeding” by Barnaby Clay
• “Triggered”

Dimensions Mumbai:

A curated section of shorts by up-and-coming filmmakers that gets the true vibe and spirit of the city right.

• “A Star is Born”
• “A Travelling Story”
• “Araj”
• “Carshed”
• “City of Mirage”
• “Dhairya Ki Seema”
• “Every Moment Here”
• “Five Star”
• “Halfway”
• “Metromony”
• “Nightingales in the Cocoon”
• “Rani of Mumbai”
• “Should I Kill Myself, Or Have A Cup Of Coffee?”
• “Strangers on a local”
• “Zoya“

Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films:

A competitive segment honoring the craft of brevity and succinctness, devoted to short films with a maximum duration of ten minutes, created by filmmakers from India.

• “Badminton”
• “C for Meow”
• “Giallo”
• “ICU”
• “Monsoon Killing”
• “Never Say Die”
• “Next, Please”
• “Sakyad”
• “Summer of Soul”
• “The Clause”
• “The Drop”
• “Touched As Water”

Marathi Talkies:

Marathi Talkies exemplifies Jio MAMI’s commitment to Marathi cinema by offering a thoughtfully curated lineup of modern Marathi films from 2023 to a worldwide audience, sharing local stories with a universal appeal.

• “1234”
• “Auto-bio Pamphlet”
• “Baipan Bhari Deva”
• “Bedbug”
• “Bhandara”
• “Blackhole”
• “Call it Flat Mumma FLAT!”
• “Consecration”
• “Gulmohar”
• “In the Lap of the Mountain”
• “Mahallenchi Shala”
• “My Grandfather’s House”
• “Shurpankha”
• “Shyam’s Mother”
• “The Furnace”
• “The Scorpion”
• “Vaalvi”
• “Ved”

Restored Classics:

Since its introduction in 2012, the Restored Classics section has been a platform for presenting newly restored classic films originating from both India and across the globe.

• “Archangel” by Guy Maddin
• “Bugis Street” by Yonfan
• “Chocolat” by Claire Denis
• “Heroic Times”
• “Millennium Mambo” by Hsiao-Hsien Hou
• “Return to Reason” by Man Ray
• “The Burmese Harp” by Kon Ichikawa
• “The Chosen One”
• “The Dupes” by Tewfik Salih
• “The Stranger and the Fog” by Bahram Beyzaie
• “Typhoon Club” by Shinji Sômai

Retrospective:

The retrospectives provide an opportunity for cinephiles of different generations to come together and explore significant collections of films from various parts of the world, allowing them to revisit and reacquaint themselves with these cinematic treasures.

• “Antigone” by Giorgos Tzvellas
• “Chidambaram” by Govindan Aravindan
• “Dolando”
• “En rachâchant”
• “Every Revolution is a Throw of the Dice”
• “France Against the Robots”
• “From the Clouds to the Resistance”
• “Harm”
• “Kattathe Kilikoodu” by Barathan
• “The Algerian War!”
• “The Ascent” by Larisa Shepitko
• “The Curtain”
• “The return of the prodigal son – Humiliated”
• “Too early/Too late”
• “Workers, Peasants”

Tribute:

In this segment, MAMI celebrates the remarkable individuals who have made significant contributions to the world of cinema, enriching the art form with their expertise. This year, the festival honors the legacies of Nitin Desai, Satish Kaushik, Navroze Contractor, Derek Malcolm, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, Virchand Dharamsey bhai, and Jean-Luc Godard.

• “A New Old Play” by Qiu Jiongjiong
• “Brick Lane” by Sarah Gavin
• “Godard by Godard” by Florence Platarets
• “Lagaan” by Ashutosh Gowarikar
• “Love in the Time of Malaria” by Sanjiv Shah
• “Paris Belongs to Us” by Jacques Rivette
• “Rat-Trap” by Adoor Gopalakrishnan
• “Trailer of the Film That Will Never Exist: ‘Phony Wars’” by Jean-Luc Godard

Recap:

In this segment, Jio MAMI commemorates their 2020 and 2022 selections by presenting them on the grand cinema screen.

• “A Home for My Heart”
• “A Night of Knowing Nothing” by Payal Kapadia
• “A.k.a”
• “Borderlands” by Samarth Mahajan
• “Crescent Night” by Gurvinder Singh
• “Desire”
• “Dhuin” by Achal Mishra
• “Donkeyhead” by Agam Darshi
• “Dostojee” by Prasun Chatterjee
• “Dug Dug” by Ritwik Park
• “Fairy Folk”
• “Fire in the Mountains” by Ajitpal Singh
• “Goldfish” by Pushpan Kripalani
• “Invisible Demons”
• “Kurthiraivaal”
• “Ladies Only”
• “Milestone”
• “Mirror”
• “Nasir”
• “Nine Hills One Valley”
• “Once Upon a Time in Calcutta”
• “Once Upon a Village”
• “Our Home”
• “Paka (River of Blood”
• “Pedro”
• “Shoebox”
• “The Chicken Curry”
• “The Cloud  Messenger”
• “The Quarrel”
• “The Rapist”
• “The Small Town Sea”
• “Three Legged Horse”
• “Tortoise Under the Earth”
• “Unaad- The Scoundrels”
• “Watch Over Me”
• “Women of my Billion”