Every year around this time is MAMI festival and while most of the time the films are spread across minimum three cinema halls, this time it is only two. Regal in Colaba and PVR in Juhu. Veteran actress Shabana Azmi, celebrating 50 years in cinema was honoured with the ‘Excellence in Cinema Award’ by MAMI, participated in a masterclass moderated by the gorgeous Vidya Balan. Vidya was clearly excited talking to the senior actor and going down memory lane of her landmark films but what was delightful was Shabana Azmi asking questions to Vidya about her craft and choices.

What is easiest for you in acting, Shabana asked Vidya and her answer was, Laughter. Vidya said she laughs a lot in real life and finds it easy to project joy on screen. What is the most difficult to do? Probed Shabana. “I want to do theatre but don’t have the courage,” said Vidya. Shabana has promised to do a play with Vidya Balan and I’m eagerly waiting for the announcement.

Mumbai Film Festival has announced that Sean Baker directed Anora will be the closing film
this year at MAMI festival.  Anora has captivated audiences since its premiere at the 2024
Festival de Cannes, where it won the prestigious Palme d’Or. Distributed by Warner Bros.
Discovery in India, the film tells the story of Ani (Mikey Madison), a Brooklyn sex worker
who gets mixed up with the Russian mafia. Baker has always been drawn to the marginalized
and Anora – a searing critique on wealth, privilege and the American dream is a fitting tribute
for the festival.
 
Starting from Saturday, 19 October to Thursday, 24 October 2024 it will be a six-day
celebration of world cinema featuring over 110 films in more than 50 languages, including
features and non-features across all genres.

Tanvi Shah — a Bombay-based theatre director and dramaturg has come up with a unique
play titled Unshared Childhoods, ‘an intimate, immersive theatrical experiment in empathy’.
Performed with live music the play explores unsent letters that take you in a flashback.
Stories of food, of strangers and of family reunion. The musical premiered in 2019 in
Glasgow on a platform encouraging experiments with intimate spaces and led to 23 more
shows. Adapted from real stories (in this case letters) written by people who expressed their
feelings on paper but the letters never reached the recipients.

Directed by acclaimed filmmaker Marc Forster and based on R.J. Palacio’s bestselling novel,
White Bird Kindness, the film stars, an ensemble cast, including Academy Award-winner
Helen Mirren, Bryce Gheisar, Emmy-winner Gillian Anderson, and rising star Orlando
Schwerdt, The White Bird Kindness is an uplifting story of emotional legacy.
To engage with the right audience, PVRINOX Pictures has partnered with Third Wave
Coffee, one of the country’s leading coffee chains, encouraging the customers to share their
cup of kindness with #WhitebirdKindnessCampaign. Recognising the aura/potential of a cup
of coffee in sparking meaningful and kind conversations, the campaign aims to propagate
messages of empathy and goodwill, extending the film’s pulse into a real-world movement. A
perfect example of a perfect collaboration.

All eyes were on Nushrat Bharucha dressed in Archana Kochhar’s collection at the Grand
Finale of the Global Media Fashion League in Dubai. The showcase unveiled Kochhar’s latest
collection – the fabric, the colours and the intricate hand-embroidered sequins and exquisite
stonework, mesmerised all and due credit should be given to the model, Nushrat Bharucha,
who walked the ramp like a Diva. Nushrat dazzled on the red carpet and said that the right
clothes you wear put you in the right mood. She said she loves fashion and films because they
make her feel like a star forever.

Boman Irani’s The Mehta Boys has been selected for the South Asian cinema and Boman
cannot stop smiling. He said he got married young and made babies, everything else in his
life – success, money, fame, time to come but he has no complaints. Let’s Talk got Boman
Irani noticed and 3 Idiots turned him into a star. He could have indulged in his unique
position but Boman was hungry for more.  He blossomed as a motivational speaker, runs a
free workshop for screenplay writers online in the last five years and has more than 750 loyal
writers seeking his expert advice every week.
He always wanted to make his own film and is now ready with The Mehta Boys to premier at
Chicago Film Festival. He writes that his family, cast and crew is going to be there with him
for the big night. “It is going to be the biggest moment for him since my wedding, since the
birth of my kids, my first appearance on stage, my first movie, my first award, my first
autograph, my first… I can go on and on…The film has taken years to make and my heart is
still thumping”.
                                                                    
The Mehta Boys is co-written by Boman Irani and Oscar-winning writer Alex Dinelaris and
will be released on Amazon Prime Video.

So KVN Productions is all set to make history, and the countdown has begun. A short video
celebrating the legacy of Thalapathy Vijay has been released prior to the big announcement
and Vija’s fans cannot contain their excitement. It is going to be the last hurrah for Vijay 69
and fans gathered in large crowds filling the entire stadium and cheering in one voice that
reached all the way to the streets.
Seriously, nobody celebrates superstars the way the South film industry does. Waiting for the
big moment…

For a long time, Kangana Ranaut has been busy with her new film Emergency depicting one
of the most controversial chapters of Indian democracy – She has gone on records to say that
projecting Indira Gandhi was a challenge. Just the transformation into the Iron Lady of
India – the grey hair, the hooked nose and wrinkled jowls, with the aid of prosthetics was a
daunting exercise day after day. What rejuvenated her was collaborating with Oscar-winning
makeup artist David Malinowski, who transformed Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill in
The Darkest Hour. The trailer of Emergency has made everyone curious and Ranaut’s
projection of the late Prime Minister’s mannerisms a topic of discussion.
Written and directed by Kangana Ranaut, Emergency also features Anupam Kher, Mahima
Chaudhary, Milind Soman, Shreyas Talpade, Vishak Nair, and the late Satish Kaushik in
pivotal roles. Produced by Zee Studios and Manikarnika Films, the film’s music is
orchestrated by Sanchit Balhara and G V Prakash Kumar with screenplay and dialogues by
Ritesh Shah. The film is slated for a theatrical release on the 6th of September 2024.