Jio Mami 18th Annual Film Festival Introduces THE NEW MEDIUM

Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star introduces a programme this year called The New Medium. This section will feature the best in innovative filmmaking by scouring the living history of cinema - from its inception to the contemporary moment. The New Medium is formulated and programmed by artist, Shaina Anand who is co-founder of the artist studio CAMP, and the Indian Cinema Foundation. These films will be screened throughout the festival, between 20th to 27th October, 2016.

The New Medium will bring together works that have shaped and transcended the language of cinema in both form and content. Powerful and relevant at the time they were made, they remain transformative as experiences. These movies challenge the preconceptions of standard methods of filmmaking.

Speaking about The New Medium, curator and artist Shaina Anand said, "This programme is not just about experimental avant-garde cinema. The moving image has a very short historical life. Its only 125 years old and its form and language is far from exhausted. Some of the films we present here are canons. Others are cult classics, known only in small circles. Here you will find assemblage, agitprop, a film about a film, an essay film, a reenactment, a faux documentary, a music video, a science fiction fantasy, a TV- series, a collectively-authored film, a pure formal interactive experience, and even one of the longest films ever made! The New Medium invites the audience to experience first-hand these remarkable trajectories from the chronicles of cinema."

The New Medium opens with the restored version of Dziga Vertov's audacious Man with the Movie Camera that was made in 1929. In 2014, Sight and Sound Magazine named it as the greatest documentary of all time. The film will be accompanied by a live score performed by the Vitaly Tkachuk Quartet joining us from Ukraine. Amongst the 14 titles that will screen throughout the festival is Uday Shankars fantastical dance film, Kalpana (1948) restored by the World Cinema Foundation, Mani Kaul's unseen mini-series Ahamaq (Idiot), and an iconic work of expanded cinema - the two-screen "Light Music"(1975) by Lis Rhodes that will be installed inside the cinema hall.

Jio MAMI with Star, Festival Chairperson, Kiran Rao said, "We are truly excited to present this new section - my personal favourite section! -which showcases some of the more bold and seminal experiments in filmmaking. I hope film lovers will take this opportunity to experience works like the newly restored Man with a Movie Camera accompanied by live music, and Lav Diaz' Evolution of a Filipino Family, among others."

Jio MAMI with Star VISION 2016

The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star is an inclusive movie feast. We showcase the latest cutting-edge, independent cinema - art house fare alongside genre movies from Bollywood and Hollywood and cult international movies. We offer the best of world cinema to the people of Mumbai and we offer the best of Indian cinema to the world. The festival is run by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image popularly known as MAMI. This is a space where we revel in the sheer pleasure of cinema, the joy it gives us and how much it enhances our lives. The goal is to nurture and ignite a passion for movies. We want Jio MAMI with Star to be shorthand for excellence in cinema.

Jio MAMI with Star Film Festival

Mumbai - the financial capital of India is also the epicenter of the Indian film industry. The city plays such a major role in production and dissemination of Indian films and television programs that it is widely known by its acronym 'Bollywood'. In 1997, a group of film industry stalwarts headed by late Hrishikesh Mukherjee founded the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) as a not-for-profit Trust. Their main objective was to organize an annual International Film Festival which the film industry and the country could be proud of. MAMI has been organizing the festival for the last 16 years and aims to foster a climate of good cinema. MAMI engages people from all walks of life across the city and country that enjoy and love good cinema. It is Mumbai's only film festival that is entirely created and run by film professionals and a group of members from corporate India. Appreciation of good cinema, stripped off all the limiting labels of art and commercial, can only come about through exposure to the best of films the world has to offer. The Festival is the first step in that direction.

In their Mission Statement in 1997, the MAMI Board of Trustees said, "We feel it is the need of the hour to disseminate and inculcate good cinema among Indian audiences. The only way to achieve this is to celebrate cinema by hosting an International Film Festival in Mumbai, India's film and entertainment capital. MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Image) is committed to start Mumbai's first independent international film festival organized by practicing film makers."

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