Acclaimed India-born filmmaker Mira Nair is to preside over the main South Asia Competition of the upcoming Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival (October 27-November 5).
She will be joined by Australian writer/director David Michod, Filipina filmmaker and actress Isabel Sandoval and Egyptian producer and director Marianne Khoury, who was named artistic director of the El Gouna Film Festival in June.
Jio MAMI revealed its full lineup yesterday, confirming that it had dropped its international and India Gold competitive sections in favour of a South Asia Competition, to better showcase rising talent from the region and diaspora.
The jury will watch 14 features by first and second-time filmmakers from India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal as well as diaspora talent from the UK and Germany. They will decide the winners of the Golden Gateway and Silver Gateway awards.
Nair is no stranger to accolade, winning the Camera d’Or at Cannes in 1988 with her debut Hello Bombay! (Salaam Bombay!), which went on to secure an Oscar nomination for best foreign-language film. Further titles include Mississippi Masala, Golden Globe and Emmy-winner Hysterical Blindness, and the international hit Monsoon Wedding, for which she became the first woman to win the Golden Lion at Venice in 2001. More recently, she directed A Suitable Boy (2020) and Queen of Katwe (2016). Her next film will be AMRI, an experimental portrait of Indian-Hungarian painter Amrita Sher-Gil.
Australia’s Michod is known for Animal Kingdom, which won the grand jury prize when it played in the world cinema dramatic strand of Sundance, as well as The Rover, War Machine and The King. His next feature is Wizards! for A24, starring Pete Davidson and Franz Rogowski.
US-based Sandoval has directed features including Senorita, which premiered at Locarno in 2011, and Lingua Franca, which debuted at Venice in 2019. Her TV credits include The Summer I Turned Pretty and she is developing her next feature, Tropical Gothic.
Egypt’s Khoury is a managing partner in Cairo-based Misr International Films and has directed several documentaries, most recently Let’s Talk, which premiered at IDFA in 2019. She has also shepherded around 30 Arab films and documentaries, and launched Zawya, Egypt’s first art house cinema circuit. She was appointed artistic director of El Gouna ahead of its sixth edition, which runs October 13-20.
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