There is fab foreign fare at MAMI

Riches from abroad await cinephiles at the upcoming MAMI Film Festival in Mumbai. Cinema theatre challenger, streaming giant and entertainment landscape influencer Netflix will screen six productions at MAMI’s 21st edition which runs between October 17 to 24. Amazon Studios is presenting Scott Z Burns’ docu-drama The Report starring Adam Driver and Jon Hamm, and Alma Har’el’s debut feature Honey Boy starring Shia LaBeouf who has also cowritten the script. Honey Boy is a coming-ofage drama inspired by LaBeouf ’s own stormy past as a child actor on a TV show. The Report refers to the dossier prepared by US Senate staffer Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) from his investigation into the CIA’s post 9/11 Detention and Interrogation Program.

The Netflix quintet comprises Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated crime epic The Irishman starring his favourites Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story starring Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles’ biopic The Two Popes starring Jonathan Pryce and Anthony Hopkins, the French animated film I Lost My Body, Senegal’s Wolof-language supernatural romantic drama Atlantics and the documentary Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator.

The eight-day festival will showcase 190 films, including over 50 debuts and 13 world premieres, from 53 countries in 49 languages in a celebration of India and the world’s cultural diversity. The A-list lineup in the world cinema section includes writer-director James Gray’s introspective space drama

Ad Astra starring Brad Pitt, Ken Loach’s intimate exploration of the working class Sorry We Missed You, Pedro Almodovar’s Spanish Oscar entry Pain and Glory and Ari Aster’s terrifying horror flick Midsommar. Among other attractions are the films in the Rendezvous with French Cinema segment, the Matthew McConaughey, Snoop Dogg, Isla Fisher, and Zac Efron-starrer stoner comedy The Beach Bum and Hamburg-based Turkish-German writer-director Faith Akin’s thriller, The Golden Glove. Hany Abu-Assad, the Oscarnominated Palestinian-Dutch filmmaker, is chair of the international jury which consists of Tamil filmmaker Vetri Maaran, Gully Boy director Zoya Akhtar, Telluride Film Festival’s Executive Director Julie Huntsinger and Edinburgh International Film Festival’s Artistic Director Mark Adams. —Ronita Torcato