Mumbai International Film Festival to be Held From February 3-9, 2008

The 10th Mumbai International Film Festival for documentary, short and animation films (MIFF) will be held from February 3-9, 2008 at the prestigious National Centre for Performing Arts, NCPA.

The week long festival will have 44 films in the international competition section and 54 films in the Indian competition section. Arrangements are being made for showcasing some World War II documentaries, never seen before in India.

Addressing the media in Mumbai today, Shri Kuldeep Sinha, Chief Producer and Head of the Films Division said, MIFF has been rated as the third largest documentary film festival in the world. He said, in all 534 entries had been received for the Indian section while 228 films from 37 countries were vying to be short listed in the international competition section. The selection process had been entrusted to the five member jury , comprising international and Indian experts, for each section. In the international category Australia, Poland, Canada and the United States have four entries each. In the Indian section, Maharashtra, more particularly Mumbai, has 19 entries, followed by Delhi 12, West Bengal 5, Assam and Gujarat 4 each.

Besides the competition section, MIFF will showcase special packages of SAARC Films , films from Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, Biographical films made on great filmmakers like Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Ingmar Bergma and Andrei Tarkovsky and Glimpses of Films Division. There are also special packages of films from Jammu & Kashmir and the North East. The Classics section will show films made by great masters like Bert Haanstra, Robert J. Flaherty, Francois Truffaut, Krystoff Zanussi and Ritwik Ghatak. This package is being organized in collaboration with the National Film Archives of India.

About three and a half to four thousand delegates are expected to register for the Mumbai International Film Festival. “MIFF is our sincere effort to encourage documentary film culture among people” said Shri Sinha, adding that his Department will be taking Documentary Film Festivals to many other parts of the country, to kindle interest in this form of films, which often get overshadowed by the mainstream Bollywood films and regional feature films.

Source: Mumbai Ministry of Information & Broadcasting

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