The curtain came down on the 11th Mumbai Film Festival with the bestowal of Lifetime Achievement awards to Amitabh Bachchan and Greek master director Theo Angelopoulos. Among those one spotted on the red carpet were Preity Zinta (who later presented the award to Amitabh), Shabana Azmi, Archana Puran Singh and Parmeet Sethi, Anu Malik, Rituparna Sengupta, Shreyas Talpade, Imtiaz Ali, Paul Schrader, Philippine filmmaker Brillante Mendoza, and former Director of Locarno Film Festival Irene Bignardi. While Kunal Kohli and Shefali Shah hosted the evening, adding colour to the excitement were performances by singers Anushka Manchanda and Kunal Ganjawala. The competition awards were also presented during the evening and prominent winners included the UK film White Lightnin’ and La Pivellina, the latter which won the jury grand prize. Shyam Benegal’s deliberate humour was A-class when he corrected himself by saying Mumbai instead of Bombay to chuckles all around.

Cheers: Amitabh Bachchan