MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images), One of India’s biggest film festivals is around the corner (17th October 2019 to 24th October 2019). Here are my thoughts and experiences I shared with it over time (especially last year).
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After the completion of round 3, we got our badges for the festival we all were waiting for. Well, I was so excited about it. I was looking forward to the festival all over the years and there was my chance to get into for the first time. I could’ve attended it before but for one or the other reason, we’re still apart.
The extravagant festival was around the corner. And guess what! We’re invited to the opening ceremony held on 25th Oct. at Gateway Of India. It was a truly fascinating event for me. It was the perfect showcase and teaser of the beginning of a roller coaster ride which is going to make us forget the hunger as around 220 awesome films were ahead of us for the whole week. The ceremony witnessed who’s who of the world cinema and Bollywood. The short and crisp event anchored by Kalki Koechlin was one of the best ones for me.
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| Opening ceremony at Gateway Of India |
We’re told that we had to watch a section of the films and write the reviews during the festival time and submit to get evaluated for the winning prizes. Well, there were two other privileges associated with it which one can’t even imagine. The YCL gang had gold passes to enter into any Audi without booking or staying in the queue. And at the end of the festival, we had to announce a winner film which would be a YCL award for that film. How joyful, right!
And the festival began. Even though the festival was started, we all were still the YCL candidates with perquisite. I had some other writing commitments and personal work, I couldn’t see all the films that I wanted to. Also, I had to first finish all the movies from the allotted section, and submit the reviews. But still, for a few days, I managed to watch at least 3-4 movies in a day. That’s huge, right!
The best thing about going to the festival was to be a part of that vibe each one contributes to. You can see people rushing, eating at panipuri stalls outside the venues with badges, some exhausted faces, some enthusiastic faces in the night too and all for the sake of cinema. I was in love with it all.
Do you ever write in the darkness? No, not on your laptop. I did. I have written notes from the film while sitting (almost in a sleeping position) on the recliners. In the dark Audi with different shades of light coming and going on your notebook, you keep moving your pen on it. I have experienced it. Sometimes I used my cellphone’s flashlight but that was a task for me and I enjoyed my bad writing on the pages. I never write long write-ups on my cellphone but bringing laptop all the days was too much to do and so, I had to write the reviews on my cellphone after coming out of the movie. Whoa! writing about a movie on the cellphone in the same cinema hall and that too in such a vibe was news to me.
I met so many cinephiles, friends, celebs. It was a hell of an experience. I have spent time with my buddies Arpit Jain and Nimesh Shinde. As I had a different set of movies in my bucket list, I couldn’t roam around with them much but we definitely shared some astonishing moments together. There were so many artists from my industry but I clicked photos with only a few favourites of mine. Also, I decided not to disturb other lovely personalities.
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