Mumbai Film Festival postponed news

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The latest victim of Mumbai terror attack it seems is, Mumbai Film Festival organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI). The 11th edition of the annual festival which was scheduled between February 19-26, 2009 has been postponed and new dates are yet to be announced.

A letter jointly signed by MAMI chairman Shyam Benegal and festival director Srinivasan Narayanan reads, "While the city is limping back to normalcy, there is concern among a lot of people, including eminent film personalities around the globe about the happenings in Mumbai. Keeping in view the concern of all our friends and supporters from around the world, MUMBAI ACADEMY OF MOVING IMAGE has decided to postpone the 11th Mumbai Film Festival to be held from the 19th to 26th of February, 2009."

The festival, earlier known as MAMI International film festival was rechristened as Mumbai Film Festival and Ex official of Directorate of film festival (DFF) and NDFC S. Narayanan took over as the festival director in August this year.

According to sources, the festival is now fully sponsored by Reliance Big Entertainment, which has been the presenting sponsor for last two editions of the festival.

Organizers has big plans to scale up the festival this year. A new global prize of USD 60,000 was announced for the best debut film. The total prize expenditure earlier announced was close to USD 125000.

According to sources new dates should hopefully be announced within a couple of weeks.

The festival, that has the distinction of being the first independently organized international film festival in the country, completed ten years in 2008. A global lifetime achievement award was introduced on the occasion last year and Spanish director Carlos Saura was the first filmmaker to receive it.