Just after rumors of the Mumbai Film Festival shutting down, stars and film lovers in India have taken to social media to show their support for the popular event. According to Variety, the 16th edition of the festival is currently scheduled to run October 14-21. Unfortunately, due to the expired five year sponsorship deal with Anil Ambani’s Reliance Entertainment after last year’s event, the organizers of the festival have struggled to move forward.
Organizer’s revealed that the festive needs about $826,000 to stay afloat and is current awaiting answers from possible sponsors. They will make the official announcement next Monday (September 1st).
Refusing to let this be the end of the event, festival fans have launched a new “film fraternity” to raise funds to keep the it alive. The Lunchbox actress, Nimrat Kaur stated, “The only film festival in our city needs support to survive. Every muscle will count to keep this from collapsing.”
Director of City Lights Hansal Mehta added, “Mumbai gives the Hindi film industry its highest revenues. Can’t the industry do anything to keep Mumbai Film Festival alive?”
In response to the social media supporters, Srinivasan Narayanan, Mumbai Film Festival director, stated, “We at the Mumbai Film Festival are overwhelmed with the sort of support we are witnessing on the Social media for the Festival. Endeavouring in all possible ways to make it happen. We see MAMI moving from solely sponsor driven to the domain of public support, becoming a sort of movement. May this movement succeed.”
The Mumbai Film Festival was founded in 1997 by a group of film industry stalwarts that were headed by late Hrishikesh Mukherjee. The main intention of the event was to acknowledge the film industry and its actors for which the country can be proud of. It has been divided into nine sections: International Competition for the First Feature Films of Directors, World Cinema, Indian Frame, Dimensions Mumbai, Celebrate Age, Retrospectives, Above the Cut , New Faces in Indian Cinema and The Real Reel. The festival aims to present the best of the crop in all its section
It’s been noted that the Mumbai Film Festival is one of India’s highest profile events and had attracted top talents such as Oliver Stone, Zhang Yimou, and Jane Campion. The festival’s principal backer, board of the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), will be meeting this weekend with Indian crowdfunding platforms to discuss possible crowdfunding campaign ideas.
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