28 Films you cannot miss at the 20th Mumbai Film Festival (Part 2)

By Asian Film Festival on October 24, 2018 • ( Leave a comment )

These are twenty-eight films you cannot miss at the Jio MAMI 20th Mumbai Film Festival with Star which will take place from October 25th – November 1st, in Mumbia, India.

Jonaki by Aditya Vikram Sengupta – India | 2018 – 105 min.
Section: India Gold

While Jonaki, an 80-year-old woman, searches for love in a strange world of decaying memories, her lover, now old and grey, returns to a world she is leaving behind.

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Light in the room by Rahul Riji Nair – India | 2018 – 97 min.
Section: India Gold

Set against the backdrop of a beautiful hilltop village, surrounded by a dense forest and a decaying tea plantation, is the story of Sudha, an under privileged woman who reaches here after getting married to Chandran. They stay with Chandran’s brother and ageing mother in a confined single room house with a make shift separation to create space for the couple. The room has a strange light without a switch, which changes colours often. While Chandran calls the light his invention of a lifetime, it deprives Sudha of her privacy and begins to haunt her. Adding to her woes, Chandran physically exerts his dominance over Sudha. Amid deep trauma, Sudha realises that she doesn’t have any support and decides to fight.

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Lovesick by Ann S. Kim, Priya Giri Desai – India | 2018 – 74 min.
Section: Discovering India

Dr. Suniti Solomon discovered HIV in India, helping thousands manage the disease. Through the stories of two of her patients, Lovesick explores the next phase of her illustrious car

Memories of my body by Garin Nugroho – Indonesia | 2018 – 105 min.
Section: World Cinema

Juno is just a kid when his father leaves him in their village of Center Java. Abandoned and alone, he joins a Lengger dance centre where men transform assuming feminine appearance and movements. But the sensuality and sexuality that come from dance and bodies, mixed with the violent social and political situation of Indonesia, force Juno to move from village to village. Though on his journey Juno gets attention and love from his dance teachers, his weird aunty, his old uncle, a handsome boxer and a Warok, he still has to face alone the battlefield that his body is becoming.

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Mom by Ravi Udyawar – India | 2017 – 146 min.
Section: MAMI Tribute

Arya’s life changes when she is brutally gang-raped by a group of spoiled rich students from her school and two of their house helps. Her stepmother seeks justice and takes the help of a detective to teach the perpetrators a lesson.

Schedule:
October 26th | Friday | PVR MULUND AUDI 6 | 3:30 pm

Namdev Bhau by Dar Gai – India | 2018 – 84 min.
Section: Discovering India

A 65-year-old chauffeur, who is tired of the noises in the obstreperous Mumbai and has completely stopped speaking, decides to leave everything in search of “Silent Valley”, which boasts of a naturally occurring phenomena that has an almost zero decibel sound level. On this journey he chances upon an exasperating 12-year-old boy, who happens to be on his own solo expedition to the mystical “Red Castle”

Photo-Prem (Smile Please) by Aditya Rathi, Gayatri Patil – India | 2018 – 93 min.
Section: Marathi Talkies

While attending a funeral, Sunanda, a housewife, realises that in such a situation people often look for a photo of the deceased that can be put up in remembrance. But given that she’s photophobic, she doesn’t have a good picture of her, one that can be left with people after her death. This leads her to think that, without a good picture, she might just be forgotten by the future generations, as they will not be able to relate to her. Worried, she sets out on a quest to overcome her fears and get a good picture. But will she be able to get a picture that defines her? And will people be able to relate to it?

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Season of the Devil (Ang Panahon ng halimaw) by Lav Diaz
Philippines | 2018 – 234 min.
Section: World Cinema

In the late 70s, a gang of militias, under the control of the military, terrorises a remote village in the Philippines. The poet-teacher-activist Hugo Haniway decides to find out the truth about the disappearance of his wife. A love story and an unconventional music set in the darkest period of Philippine history, the Marcos Dictatorship, Season of the Devil is based on real events and real characters.

Schedule:
October 30th | Tuesday | PVR ECX AUDI 2 | 4:00 pm

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Shadow by Zhang Yimou – China | 2018 – 115 min.
Section: World Cinema

Shadow tells the story of a powerful King and his people who have been displaced from their homeland and long to win it back. The king is wild and ambitious, but his motives and methods are mysterious. His great general is a visionary who longs for nothing more than to win the ultimate battle, but needs to lay his plans in secret. The women of the palace are tragic figures, caught between being treated goddesses and pawns. And then there is the “everyman” around whom the inexorable forces of history swirl, always ready to swallow him up.

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Shoplifters by Kore-eda Hirokazu – Japan | 2018 – 121 min.
Section: World Cinema

A Japanese couple stuck with part-time jobs and inadequate incomes avail themselves of the fruits of shoplifting to make ends meet. They are not alone in this behaviour. The young and the old of the household are in on the act. This unusual routine is about to change from carefree and matter-of-fact to something more dramatic, as the couple opens their doors to a beleaguered teenager. The reasons for the family and friends’ habit and motivations, as a result, come under the microscope.

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Soni by Ivan Ayr – India | 2018 – 97 min.
Section: India Gold

The alliance between Soni, a young Delhi policewoman, and her superintendent is tested to its limits when they suffer a major setback in their fight to curb the most serious social crisis of a generation.

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The gold-laden sheep and the sacred mountain by Ridham Janve
India | 2018 – 97 min.
Section: India Gold

After an Air Force jet crashes in the Himalayas, an old shepherd leaves his herd to find its pilot. But the mountain where the jet fell is sacred and the shepherd’s intentions are not. He struggles across dimensions of space and time as he treads on forbidden ground. The herd left behind disintegrates as predators roam around, and they are left head-less.

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True Blue by Swati Dandekar – India | 2018 – 85 min.
Section: India Story

This is the story of indigo, India’s most precious natural dye, which was lost to the events and processes of history. A century later, as the world begins to seek natural dyes once more, it is back in the spotlight. Neeli Raag tells the story of the stubborn dreamers who kept it alive through the years of oblivion. Their true-blue faith in the craft is vindicated, yet crafting indigo requires body-knowledge and patience that seems to belong to another time. The world that once nurtured this difficult and elusive colour is no longer the same. Can true blue colour survive our own life and times and live to tell its tale to the future?

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Vision by Naomi Kawase – Japan | 2018 – 109 min.
Section: World Cinema

Jeanne, a French journalist, comes to Japan in search of Vision, a rare medicinal herb said to strip away all spiritual anguish and weakness in human beings.

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