The 15th Mumbai Film Festival is drawing
closer. Organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) and supported by
the Dept. of Culture, Government of Maharashtra, the eight days of celebration
of cinema will begin on the 17th October, 2013 and continue till 24th October,
2013. This year, on the cards, are many major announcements that will take the
level of the film festival to new heights, making it one of the Asia’s finest
and most prestigious events.
Today, the names of the recipients of its
esteemed Lifetime Achievement Awards are announced. This year, the festival and
the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) will bestow the Academy Award-winner
French filmmaker, Costa-Gavras with its Lifetime Achievement Award. One of
French cinema’s most internationally-renowned filmmakers, Gavras is best known
for his political thrillers, such as the Best Foreign Language Oscar-winner Z
(1969); Missing (1982), for which Gavras won the Best Writing (Adapted
Screenplay) Oscar; The Little Apocalypse (1993) and Amen (2002). Hailed as one
of the world’s living legends in cinema, the Greek-born Gavras has also been
conferred with the title of French Knighthood. The winner of numerous
international film awards, he has been on the jury of various film festivals.
Since 2007, he has also been serving as the President of Cinémathèque
Française, one of the world’s largest film archives.
“We are honored to confer the Lifetime
Achievement Award to Costa-Gavras. His films have been loved and celebrated by
millions of cinema lovers worldwide. We are humbled that he has agreed to
receive this award,” said Shyam Benegal, Chairman, Mumbai Academy of Moving
Image (MAMI).
Festival Director, Srinivasan Narayanan is
ecstatic: “When I think of Costa-Gavras, I am overwhelmed by the elegant,
humanist films he has bequeathed to humanity, his gentle nudge to stand up and
take a position as he did with his announcement for “Z” – "Any similarity
to persons or events is deliberate". It is our good fortune that we would
be receiving him in the Mumbai Film Festival and interacting with him for a
whole week.”
Along with Gavras, legendary Indian
actor-director Kamal Haasan will also be bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement
Award. Haasan is one of the stalwarts of Indian cinema, who has recently
completed 50 years as actor, director, writer, producer, singer, choreographer
and lyricist. He has over 190 films to his credit, across genres, industries
and languages including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam. He is best
known for his performances in critically-acclaimed and award-winning films such
as Moondram Pirai (1982); Nayagan (1987), hailed as one of the best films of
all time by TIME magazine; Pushpak (1987), Appu Raja (1989) and Hey Ram (2000).
In his highly decorated career, the maestro has been conferred with three
National Film Awards, a Padma Shri, and a Kalaimamani Award, and earned a huge
loyal fan following across the globe.
Speaking about Kamal Haasan, Shyam Benegal
said, “He is a legend in every sense of the term. He is a writer, singer,
director, lyricist and an actor par-excellence. We are extremely honored to
present the Lifetime Achievement Award to Shri Kamal Haasan.”
Srinivasan Narayanan said, “My generation
grew up watching Kamal Haasan’s films. His growth as an actor from K.
Balachander’s Arangetram and Apoorva Raagangal to his award winning
performances in Mani Ratnam’s Nayagan and Indian and the variety he brought in
- from serious films to comedies to action films is phenomenal. He is straddling
across all departments of filmmaking like a colossus.
The Mumbai Film Festival is currently in its
15th edition. Over the years, it has grown to become one of the most celebrated
cultural events of the country. This edition of the festival, will screen over
200 films from 65 countries and would soon be open for the thousands of cinema
lovers to become a part of this celebration of the real spirit of cinema.
The 15th Mumbai Film Festival will take place
from the 17th – 24, October 2013 and will be held at Metro Cinema and Liberty
Cinemas as the main festival venues and Cinemax, Andheri (West) as the
satellite venue.
The 15th Mumbai Film Festival, a Reliance
Entertainment initiative is organized by Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI)
and supported by the Dept. of Culture, Government of Maharashtra - a body
comprised of Indian film industry stalwarts, which was founded in 1997 by late
filmmaker Shri Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Noted filmmaker Shri Shyam Benegal heads
the body that consists of film directors including: Ramesh Sippy, Sudhir
Mishra, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, renowned actresses
Shabana Azmi and Jaya Bachchan, actor-director Amol Palekar and Farhan Akhtar
lyricist, writer and director Amit Khanna.
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