MAMI: The origins of the Mumbai Film Festival, and the people who realised this dream
IFFI, or the International Film Festival of India, began in Bombay, in 1952. It was then held in 1961, and after that, more regularly, till the mid-70s, in New Delhi. From the 3rd IFFI, held in 1965, it became a competitive festival, always held in New Delhi. Eleven years later, in 1976, it came back to what was at that time the equivalent of Hollywood in India. The festival in Bombay took on a new name, Filmotsav, which is the Hindi approximation of Film Festival, and was non-competitive. This was done with the intention of alternating/shuttling the film festival annually between New Delhi and other major cities of India, so that they get exposure too. But Filmostsavs were always non-competitive.
Since Mumbai had not had a festival for so long, and there was no infrastructure in place, some agencies had to be called in to make to contribute. Government wings, like the Film Finance Corporation (FFC), Films Division (FD), Press Information Bureau (PIB), Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP), and the voluntary body, Federation of Film Societies of India (FFSI). Of these, only FFSI had any experience in screening International Cinema, shorts and features, animation and documentaries, and the non-mainstream films from all over the world. And so it was, called to help in the selection and programming of the film-fare to be screened.
In 1976, I was already an established journalist, having been a critic for a good seven years. Besides, I had been an Executive Committee Member of the University Film Society in 1973 and the Chairman of a Film Society, called Cine Circle, since 1974, with over 100 members. The biggest Film Society was Film Forum, which had members from the film industry and graduates of the Film and Television Institute of India. Other prominent Societies included Prabhat, Suchitra and Anandam. We had a Western Regional Council of film societies, which was an all-India organisation, with its current head-quarters in Calcutta, where it began in 1947. It had prominent names like Satyajit Ray, Chidananda Dasgupta, Vijaya Mulay, K.L. Khandpur and believe it or not, Indira Gandhi and Inder Kumar Gujral, as its members, in the initial years.
Serving on the Western Regional Council of the FFSI, I was appointed part of the Selection Committee and a member of the co-ordinating Committee. It is impossible to recall what films were selected, but I do recall that the FFSI played a prominent role in running the festival and that it was a moderate success, with some glitches. Among the venues was Tarabai Hall, outside Marine Lines Station, in South Bombay, an auditorium not meant for film screenings, but since FFSI members used to have many of their screenings there, it was chosen as a venue. I might mention in an aside that the first two non-Hollywood foreign films I saw were courtesy the FFSI: Red Beard at Apsara, in a morning show, and Rashomon, in Tarabai hall, when I was just 15. Seeing my keen interest and being aware that both the Akira Kurosawa masterpieces had no adult content, the Secretary of Film Forum, who had organized the shows for its members, allowed me in, on a guest ticket of Re. 1. Needless to say, both films remain timeless classics embedded in my memory, 57 years after I first saw them.
Moving along, the caravan called Filmotsav shifted to Madras, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad and Calcutta, while IFFI continued to be held in New Delhi. I attended most of these festivals, however, I had to leave the Madras festival halfway because a frantic Nadeem (of the music director duo, Nadeem-Shravan) wanted me to attend the rehearsals of the show they were to hold at the Brabourne Stadium a week later. And he would not take no for an answer.
Right from 1976, Bombayites had felt that IFFI should be held in Bombay, and only