Mumbai Calling

In what will be a big boost to the city’s filmmakers,Toronto International Film Festival has announced that it will celebrate Mumbai’s contemporary cinema as part of its special City to City segment. Last week,its artistic director Cameron Bailey made a brief visit to Mumbai to shortlist the 10 films that will be screened at the festival. Even though the final list is yet to be announced,Bailey talks about the kind of cinema they are looking for. “Mumbai’s cinema today is entirely different from what it was five or six years ago. Filmmakers such as Dibakar Banerjee,Anurag Kashyap,Farah Khan,Madhur Bhandarkar and others have shifted the terrain,probing into previously taboo subjects and adopted styles that were earlier unpalatable to the Indian audience,” he says.

He adds that he’s looking for films that speak to the audience in Toronto,apart from the self-fleeting currents in world cinema. The segment will also showcase films that reflect a director’s passion. TIFF,in its previous years,has showcased films from Tel Aviv,Istanbul and Buneos Aires. According to Bailey,the time is right to focus on Mumbai because of the rise of independent cinema. “In each case,I’m looking for a city with a strong bunch of new filmmakers,and a city going through change. It’s how new filmmakers represent the evolution of their cities that interests me. Often they are voices of change,even if it isn’t a conscious decision on their part. I am doing the selection myself,” he explains. The final list of 10 films will be announced on July 31.