It’s a festival of films that’s happening in Mumbai, home to one of the world’s busiest film factories. Hence, the absence of most of Bollywood’s biggies at the Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) is very odd.
Sonakshi Sinha was at the inauguration ceremony but went away soon after the lamp-lighting photo-op. Konkona Sen Sharma watched The Past and Blue Is The Warmest Colour. Nandita Das and Seema Biswas watched their film Oonga and Kirron Kher came for Good Morning Karachi.
Sonam Kapoor will be there today to present critic-turned-filmmaker Khalid Mohammed’s Little Big People. But no one else felt it necessary to attend and support the festival.
Exasperated, festival director Srinivasan Narayanan said, “What can one do? We sent them invites and also followed up... but they have not shown up.” Without naming those approached, he added, “I guess they must be busy.”
“Doing what?” asked filmmaker Deepa Mehta. “Endorsements, promotions and other things our film stars do? Come on, this is a good effort happening in your own city. They can surely support it by attending. It would help build more buzz around the festival.”
Unlike her, Rajkumar Yadav, who was on the Dimension Mumbai short film competition jury and enjoyed all the post-Shahid attention, tried to skip answering. “Don’t get me in trouble. You should speak to the senior stars and ask them what’s keeping them busy?” he said.
Filmmaker Shoojit Sircar said this was sadly the case with film festivals in Goa and Kerala too but hoped it would change. “Things are changing and the industry will have to come around in its own interest.” He lamented that those who had benefitted from the indie film movement too chose to stay away.
Echoing Sircar, actor Tisca Chopra said, “The sands are shifting, rather fast. The sooner the ones who swear by the box office wake up to this, the better it will be. This change is almost seismic and those who don’t wake up to the power of the meaningful will have to repent.”
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