MAMI’s 18^th MFF schedule had gaping holes

Multiple venues spread far and wide, across the Western and Eastern, Southern and Northern tips of the linear city of Mumbai meant that persons living in those areas where the cinemas are located would have easier access to them and would save a lot of time commuting. If we measure the distances between the farthest separations, it could take 2 ½ to 3 hours for a passenger to reach the corresponding venue. Include return travel, and you are talking about 6 hours of journeying. Most films at film festivals are 1 ½ hours long, so a film-buff could end-up missing four films to catch just one, if the said film-buff was really keen on seeing, and managed to get a seat, for that one film. It could also mean seeing just one or two films a day.

Jio MAMI’s 18^th Mumbai Film Festival (MFF) with STAR was spread across seven screening venues. Two of these, PVR Icon and PVR ECX, are located in the Western suburbs, within 500 metres of each other. In the case of Regal (South Mumbai) and PVR Mulund, the distance between the two is 43 km. Situated in between are PVR Phoenix (Central Mumbai, Lower Parel), Le Reve (beginning of the Western suburbs, Bandra) and PVR Kurla (beginning of the Eastern suburbs). Now let us look at the number of screens MFF had ear-marked: 6 at Icon, 5 at ECX, 1 at Le Reve, 4 at Phoenix, 1 at Regal (single screen), 1 at Kurla and 1 at Mulund, which add up to a whopping 19 screens. That is some number.

MFF scheduled five slots/day, at which rate we would be in for 95 screenings every day. Yes, 95! Over seven days, October 21-27 (discounting the opening day, October 20, when only glitterati were invited, and no screening was held), we would then expect 665 screenings. Between 150 and 175 films were to be shown, so every film could therefore be screened four times. Obviously, this could only happen if the festival had permission to screen the films so many times each. On second thought, is every film shown at a festival worth being shown three or four times? As a rule, most films are shown once, some twice and an exceptional film is projected thrice. Chances are that you would miss your favourite film, even it was shown thrice, on two grounds: no seat and/or venue too far away. So what happened to all those 665 slots?

Many of them were left vacant. On a typical day, 25 October for example, 37 slots were empty across the 19 cinemas, and another five were reserved for school shows. 42 EMPTY SLOTS ON ONE SINGLE DAY. Up to four successive shows were not held at some venues. So, you either had to travel great distances to try your luck elsewhere, or go back home. Newly opened and touted as the state-of-the-art venture of a group that has just come to Mumbai, Le Reve had only 26 slots scheduled, out of a possible 35 (5 x 7). Regal, which can seat 1,166 and should have had the maximum films scheduled there, fared slightly better, at 27 shows over the entire festival.

To complicate matters, a two day film Mela (fête) was held at Rang Mandir, on the 22^nd and the 23^rd. On both days, it was confined to the normal office timing of around 10 am to 6 pm. Only one cinema, Le Reve, is within easy reach from this auditorium. There were several sessions and star personality interviews conducted, but if you attended even one, you would have to miss 2/3 films. Incidentally, when you include Rang Mandir as a festival venue, add it to the seven cinemas listed above, and the inaugural who’s who bash at Royal Opera House, you will find that MFF was spread across nine locales. However, in the end, there were so many stories of missed films that the spread turned out to be thin and miserly.