808 films from 30 countries to be screened at this year's Mumbai International Film Festival

The 17th Mumbai International Film Festival is all set to commence from 29 May to 4 June.MIFF this year will showcase 808 films from 30 countries.The inauguration of the festival will take place on 29 May at the Nehru Centre Auditorium and conclude with an awards ceremony on June 4. There are going to be several competitions in the national as well as international categories. The Best Documentary Film, an international competition, will see the winner get a prize of Rs10 lakh. The Best Short Film (Fiction) and Best Animation Film are also international competitions. The categories in the national competition include Best Documentary Film and Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari award for Best Debut.

This year the festival has roped in several OTT players like Amazon Prime Video, MUBI India, Pocket Films and Planet Marathi OTT to provide opportunities for short, animation and documentary filmmakers to reach wider audiences.Ravinder Bhakar, director general of the Films Division and director of the festival, said, “MIFF is a platform that recognizes and showcases the best talents in documentary, short fiction and animation films, but we also wanted to professionally promote these art forms and hence we are collaborating with leading national and international players. The B2B opportunities will open the doors of infinite success to filmmakers.”MIFF 2022 will also have a series of workshops by film industry experts. For instance, Padma Shri awardee and Oscar-winner Resul Pookutty will conduct a workshop on ‘aesthetics of sound in cinema’. Oscar and British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) jury member Carter Pilcher will share insights on ‘qualifying films for the Oscars’.This edition of MIFF is also set to host the Indian premiere of Satyajit Ray’s documentary Sukumar Ray (1987), which has been restored by the National Film Archive of India (NFAI). The world premiere of Mighty Little Bheem: I love Taj Mahal, presented by Netflix Greengold, will also take place on 30 May at the festival.