The popular Mumbai Film Festival of India, operated by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), will have no edition in 2025.
In an Announce posted to x on Monday, Festival Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Who is also India’s Leading Film Preservation Activist, Wrote: “This is to inform you that the 2025 Edition of Mami Mumbai Film Festival Will Not Take Place As We are in the Process of Revamping the Festival And a new team to ensure that the festival Returns as a Premier Showcase for the Best of Independent, Regional and Classic Cinema from India and everywhere in the world.
This is the last hiccup for a festival that has made it its right since its creation in 1997. The festival approached the collapse after the withdrawal of binding Entertainment as a sponsor in 2014 and American Express in 2013. At that time, Mami saved the event through a crowdfunding call which was largely answered by names of celebrities of the Bollywood industry. In 2015, the festival locked Beliance Jio Infocomm and Star India as key sponsors.
The festival has made an absence of three years to three years and linked to logistics and returned in 2023 with an center, an updated management team and a multitude of plans, including the revival of the long-mort market. However, Jio of billionaire Mukesh Ambani left as a title sponsor, leading to an edition truncated in 2024.
The eminent Indian cineaser Hansal Mehta, including “Aligarh” and “The Buckingham Murders” have opened the festival in the past, published on X: “It is a cruel irony that Mumbai draped in the straw the hands of some passionate believers to run on pure faith.
Mehta’s compatriot, Praveen Morchhale, of which “Walking With The Wind” played Camerimage and Friborg and won the National film Awards of India, published. “What a paradox. Mumbai, which houses billionaires, Bollywood and stars that walk on the red carpets of Cannes, cannot support its own film festival. Governments use cinema for their own reasons and then abandon it. The filmmakers who believe to tell the truth to suffer.
