India’s Mami Mumbai Film Festival will not be held this year as organizers work to overhaul the event ahead of the planned returns in 2026 and assemble new teams.
In a statement posted throughout the social media channels, festival director Shivendra Sindangerpur said:
“We are committed to rescheduling the festival and will announce the new date for the 2026 edition as soon as possible. We appreciate your understanding and support.”
It marks the latest set-off from a 27-year-old festival hosted by Mumbai Academy of Moment Image (MAMI).
Founded in 1997 as a film festival – Mumbai was sponsored by Reliance Entertainment from 2008 to 2013, but once the agreement ended, it was on the verge of closure. After struggling with the 2014 edition, supported by crowdfunding efforts led by Bollywood celebrities, Reliance-owned Jio and Star India joined the festival sponsorship.
In 2020, the festival was postponed due to the community pandemic and returned in 2022 as an online-only edition. It resumed as an in-person event in 2023, with a new focus being chaired by South Asian filmmaking, a new festival centre, Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
However, Jio’s sponsorship ended with that edition, and last year marked the festival’s first mark without title sponsorship since 2014. This dramatically reduced the number of titles screened between the age of 110 in 2024, from over 250 in 2023.
Film director Hansal Meta, whose crime drama Buckingham’s Murder We have opened the 2023 edition mentioned in X. “The glamour of Mumbai as India’s financial and cinema capital cannot live on its own film festival.
“I followed the stages of Signier, abandoned by the self-appointed gatekeeper of a film that made a safer bet, left in the hands of several passionate followers, running pure faith.
(TagStoTRASSLATE)Asia (T)Festival (T)India (T)Mumbai
