MUMBAI: The 12th MAMI International Film Festival, which is to be held in Mumbai from 21 – 28 October, will showcase an exclusive “Celebration of Japanese Cinema” package.
With the collaboration of the Consulate General of Japan in Mumbai and The Japan Foundation, pristine 35MM prints of 44 films – classic as well as contemporary – will be screened providing festival-goers.
The section will be inaugurated with the gala all-India premiere of About Her Brother (2010), a melodrama by veteran director Yoji Yamada.
The selection covers eight decades from the early 1930s up to the present. A variety of genres (traditional family drama, samurai epic, yakuza thriller) and styles are represented ranging from Masaki Kobayashi’s 3-part magnum opus, The Human Condition (1959-61) to Mikio Naruse’s intimately-scaled When A Woman Ascends The Stairs (1960).
Cineastes will also get a chance to compare the unique acting styles of some of Japanese cinema’s pre-eminent actresses including Hideko Takamine and Setsuko Hara.
Besides the well-known contemporary director Takashi Koizumi, several international film historians/ scholars are expected to attend the festival. A seminar on Japanese cinema is also being organised as part of the Celebration which is shaping into one of the highlights of this year’s edition of MAMI.
