A celebration of goodwill and collaborationMUMBAI: Wednesday April 3, 2017: Last night Mumbai’s largest and most popular film festival-The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star celebrated cinema and the spirit of collaboration with an intimate sundowner hosted by It Happened In New York and Chandon India.
The sundowner was a shout- out to Indian distributors and consulates that have always supported and enabled MAMI to bring some of the best cinema to audiences here. This will be one of many sundowners that MAMI will be organizing in the spirit of collaboration and appreciation.
The event saw a stellar mix of film personalities that are part of the MAMI board, consulates and studio honchos such as Nitesh Kriplani, Country Head-Amazon Video India, Amrita Pandey, VP,Studios Disney, Natasha Chopra, Creative Head, Drishyam Films, Avinaash Jumani,General Director, Pictureworks, Sailesh Dave, Founder, CEO Runaway Luminosity Pvt. Ltd. and Neeraj Goswamy, VP Sales and distribution Viacom 18 Motion Pictures. Representing the consulates were Turkish Vice Consul Gamze Kaderoglu, Jordan Reeves Consul General,Canada, Joanna Lovejoy, Deputy Consul General, Australian Consulate and Tasneem Kaleskar,Sr. Cultural Affairs Advisor of the US Consulate.
Also in attendance were the festival sponsors, represented by Kaushik Roy, President Brand Strategy & Marketing Communication Jio and Gayatri Yadav, President Consumer Strategy & innovation, Star India.
Present from Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star were Chairperson, Kiran Rao, Festival director Anupama Chopra and Creative Director, Smriti Kiran. Filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, Rohan Sippy and Producer Siddharth Roy Kapur represented the MAMI Board of Trustees.
Director Neeraj Ghaywan, Writer Varun Grover,Shakun Batra and Guneet Monga were also present.
Kiran Rao, Chairperson, Jio MAMI Film Festival with Star, “The sundowner was our way of celebrating with our collaborators-distributors, board members and MAMI champions-without whom the film festival would not be possible. It was a really fun night with everyone under one roof celebrating the power of cinema.”
Anupama Chopra, Festival Director, Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star said, “We take a moment to thank our supporters, partners and sponsors. It takes a village to create a film festival and it is only through the spirit of collaboration that we are able to bring the finest cinema to audiences every year.”
Smriti Kiran, Creative Director, Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star said, “Each and every collaborator is important to us and any kind of help we can get is appreciated. This is a year we will be throwing a bunch of intimate sundowners for each group of people who have stood by us. The idea is to keep it small so that we can speak to everyone and spend quality time celebrating and mapping out the road ahead.”
Natasha Chopra, Creative Head Drishyam Films,”The festival is a great initiative because there has been nothing like this in India before. And for the first time I see so many creative and industry people coming together which has not happened before. So I think any collaboration of this sort will lead exciting things in the future.”
Amrita Pandey,VP Studios, Disney India,”We are thrilled to partner with MAMI for the special screening of Marvels Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2. They have built such an amazing community of movie enthusiasts in Mumbai and they curate such a diverse mix of international movies even for their year round programme screenings!”
Festival partners Chandon India and It happened in New York were only too happy to kick off 2017 with a glorious and intimate first evening out of the many to follow.
Sophia Sinha - Senior Marketing Manager, Chandon India said, “Chandon India is proud to be part of MAMI in 2017. We came on board end of last year with MAMI, as one of its partners and showcased our Limited Edition bottles throughout the festival. This year we are extremely happy to take the partnership wider with MAMI to become its official Party Starter. MAMI embodies all things Chandon – game changing and innovative. MAMI with its unique platform provides cinema lovers with an experience to remember with each film and event. With its commitment to nurturing world cinema and encouraging young filmmakers in India, it has become one of the most prestigious platforms in our country. Needless to say, we are looking forward to what 2017 has in store.”
Manashwi and Aastha Gupta, Owners, It Happened in New York said, "We love celebrating everything that pays homage to the great city of New York, and the magic of movies is especially something that the Big Apple embraces so well. We are delighted to be partnering with MAMI, India's pre-eminent film festival, which is synonymous with excellence in cinema. We can't wait to see what this year's line-up has in store for us all."
The Mumbai Film Festival is slated from October 12th –18th October, 2017