Starting from October 18, the 14th Mumbai Film Festival will screen nine silent films this year to celebrate 100 years of Indian Cinema. "This is how we are going to celebrate 100 years of Indian cinema" and "bring back the era of silent cinema," said leading filmmaker Shyam Benegal.
As an initiative of Reliance Entertainment, the eight-day film festival will showcase more than 200 films, including nine silent films
"The main thing is going to be the nine restored silent films that will be shown the way it used to be shown in the silent days of Indian cinema”.
"The way it used to be shown 100 year ago… with live music," Benegal, chairman Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI), which organises the fest, told IANS.
"That is how we are going to celebrate the 100 years of Indian cinema. Because that is the experience that nobody has now known or even has the memory of it because none of those people are living. So that will give you an idea of early Indian cinema was like. The silent era will be back", he added.
In addition to that the fest will also screen a good collection of world cinema too.
"We are going to get the best of world cinema as we did last year", said Srinivasan Narayanan, Festival director to IANS.
Talking about the centenary celebration of Indian cinema, he added that "We are only screening only existing Indian silent films along with a live music."
"For films like 'A Throw Of Dice', we are bringing a group of German artists and they will play music. We are trying to create live music for silent films as a tribute to Indian cinema," said Narayanan.
Moreover, this year the festival will also pay tribute to the Italian cinema by showing a special collection of film under the Celebration of Italian Cinema section.
"Altogether over 200 films will be shown. But among silent films there will be nine and then we will have a whole retrospective of Italian cinema from silent days till now," said Benegal
The venue for this year's film festival will be south of Mumbai at NCPA and INOX.
This year, filmmakers Anurag Kashyap and Sudhir Mishra have joined as trustees in the MAMI board. The festival will introduce a competition section for Indian films this year.
This year, the festival will also introduce a competition section for Indian films with the cash reward of Rs.15 lakh to celebrate 100 golden year of Indian cinema.
"These films will be judged by the foreign award winning technicians and directors so that it will be a foreign jury looking at Indian films," said Narayanan.
Following last year's excellent response to French films, "Rendezvous with French Cinema" will be hosted by the fest in collaboration with the French Embassy in India and Unifrance.
-With inputs from IANS
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