Instead of discussing the opening film, All We Imagine as Light, we are left talking about everything else.
Akhil Arora, a Film Critics Guild member and a Rotten Tomatoes-certified film critic, who has been attending the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival for over a decade. He has been reviewing movies and TV series since 2015 and has written for NDTV and SlashFilm.
When the 2024 Mumbai Film Festival—better known by the name of its organising body, MAMI, the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image—unveiled its selection of titles earlier in October, there was one conspicuous absence: All We Imagine as Light. A film that had broken India’s terrible decades-long streak at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May and picked up the festival’s second most prestigious prize, the Grand Prix, was nowhere to be found. But any MAMI nerd or film journalist worth their salt knew what was coming. Five days later, it was confirmed. Payal Kapadia’s trailblazing sophomore feature narrative was going to serve as the opening film of the 2024 chapter. And in a rare public-facing move, the premiere was going to be open to everyone—and not an invite-only event as it has in the past. Alas, that goodwill would be toast on the night.
How MAMI works for the aam jantaa
The MAMI Mumbai Film Festival is, in a manner of speaking, open to the aam jantaa (that’s Hindi for the general public). Anyone can theoretically watch all the films screened at the festival if you’re willing to pay the registration fee. (₹1,000 for those older than 60 and ₹1,500 for the rest.) Of course, it’s easier said than done. That’s because MAMI has always entertained and operated with artificial scarcity. In a city brimming with eager filmmakers and a film-loving crowd, the festival runs for less than a week across half a dozen venues and tends to pack in hundreds of movies. That means each film is screened just twice or thrice at most. With an average Mumbai cinema able to pack in an audience of 200–250, you compete with thousands to secure a seat. That’s before you discount the number of reserved seats for members of the press, film cast and crew, film industry, and walk-ins. (Wait, what are walk-ins? We’ll get to that in a minute.)
To give everyone a fair shot, in principle, the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival opts to open registrations for film screenings a day in advance at 8 am. (It used to be 12 am midnight back in the day, which wasn’t an ideal time for many. But 8 am has its own problems, given a lot of the attendees travel long distances to get to the venues.) For instance, if you want to watch a film that is playing at 8 pm on a Sunday, you must engage in a fastest fingers first contest at 8 am on Saturday. If you’re lucky enough and the BookMyShow servers—that is MAMI’s ticketing and technology partner—don’t curse you with loading, refreshing or cache delays, you’ll have the chance to reserve a seat for the film of your choice. In most cases, given the limited number of seats and the reservations in place, bookings are sold out within 15 seconds.
If you’re unable to register for a film you’re extremely excited to watch, there is an alternative. It’s called walk-ins. You can join the walk-in queue at any venue to have the potential to catch the film. After all the registered folks and those from the media and industry have been let in, the remaining seats are opened for walk-ins 15–20 minutes before the film starts. However, this depends heavily on the number of no-shows and the level of media and industry participation. For the Shoplifters screening at the 2018 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, only four of 200+ walk-ins made it into the theatre. When it can be that disheartening, why even allow walk-ins? Well, it creates a sense of atmosphere (the MAMI social team loves posting videos of the long queues) and it’s great marketing for the festival. Plus, it theoretically allows for exploration and word of mouth.
The 2024 MAMI story at Regal Cinema
This registration and walk-in process is better when it comes to the likes of Regal Cinema. For one, it has a capacity of nearly 1,200 seats. And two, its physical distance from North Mumbai, where most of those who work in the film industry live, makes it an easier exercise. But that doesn’t have the same relevance this year thanks to the 2024 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival operating with limited venues due to a lack of a title sponsor. In lieu of that, MAMI initially decided that it wasn’t going to do walk-ins this year. (It also heavily restricted press access to the opening film. In 2023, the media was freely invited to the opening film at the sprawling 2,000-plus-seater Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre. Cut to 2024 and the media list was shrouded in secrecy.) But a day before the start of the festival, it caved in to social media pressure and changed course. Walk-ins were back though it’s unclear whether it tweaked the number of possible registrations for the opening film.
That brings me back to the horrors of the All We Imagine as Light premiere on the night of October 18. With press access looking like a pipe dream, I logged on at 7:50 am on Thursday, braved the BookMyShow minefield and nabbed myself a registration for the opening film. I began work earlier on Friday so I could get off early and would have enough time to get to an earlier-than-usual premiere. (It was set for 5:30 pm with the film set to start at 6 pm. However, given the problems we are set to discuss, it didn’t begin until 6:40 pm, I’m told.) In the interest of conserving time, I spent ₹1,000 on a cab and arrived an hour prior. (Of course, I recognise my privilege. I’m sure there were tougher ordeals—especially those who had to bear the heat and humidity of Mumbai to use public transport to get themselves there.)
Except that wasn’t enough. Thanks to miscalculations and horrendous organisation, it took 80 minutes to pick up the badge, with the queue crawling at a snail’s pace. With only the opening film on Friday—the 2024 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival begins in earnest on Saturday—surely Team MAMI should’ve anticipated this. But it didn’t. When I did eventually get my badge around 6:20 pm, I was told that the seat I reserved wasn’t mine anymore because the time had passed. Except it was MAMI and BookMyShow’s own fault that I was late for the registered queue. All that sacrifice was for nothing. The toils of getting a seat and going to the venue all for nothing. What about the fact that I couldn’t write a review and would suffer professionally as a result? The organising body didn’t seem to care. The funniest thing was that there were empty seats even after the film started, as I learnt from someone who worked on All We Imagine as Light.
It’s just baffling. Forget the problems that MAMI created for itself—I’ve bigger questions. Why do we still have to pick up a physical badge in the year 2024? If FIFA can run a World Cup for millions of fans with an entirely app-based approach, one where your tickets aren’t unlocked until a particular time and unless you’re near the venue, why can’t MAMI with its long-term ticketing partner BookMyShow figure this out? To tell someone who has spent a thousand on travel, taken time off from their work and done the hard work of reserving a seat, that they can no longer access that seat is chaotic, horrendous mismanagement.
It reeks of a festival body that doesn’t know what it’s doing. It claims to be putting the fans first—pulling last-minute moves like “Oh yeah, sorry, we’ll do walk-ins after all”—and not bothering to design the experience that caters to those most invested in it. It cheeses you off. Instead of discussing the movies, we are left discussing the trauma of trying to get access to our seats. MAMI 2024 has shot itself in the foot before it even began. It’s deserving of its own film, one that gets stuck in development hell, then spends a fortune in rewrites and production, and ultimately never sees the light of day. The stage is going up in flames—and Nero MAMI is fiddling away.
The 2024 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival runs from Saturday, October 19 to Thursday, October 24.
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What do you think?