Mumbai: Filmmaker Kiran Rao, the driving force behind the MAMI film festival, is happy with the response the event received this season and credited the huge Bollywood turnout for it.
"It's Bollywood presence that helps in grabbing eyeballs. Everyone wants to see who walks the red carpet. Even at Cannes everyone sees who is walking the red carpet than watching films. This is normal thing in any festival it helps in getting attention and registering the festival in the minds of audience. I am happy that our stars helped us," Kiran, the Chairperson of MAMI, told PTI.
The festival got a big thumbs up from A-listers and celebrities like Salman Khan, Vidya Balan, Deepika Padukone, Kangana Ranaut, Sonam Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Sidharth Malhotra, Katrina Kaif, Saif Ali Khan, Rajkumar Hirani, Varun Dhawan, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Siddharth Roy Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Sridevi, Boney Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Riteish Deshmukh and Kunal Kapoor among others.
Kiran's actor-husband Aamir Khan couldn't attend the festival as he was busy shooting his upcoming film."He is busy with Dangal in Punjab," she said.
The 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, which concluded last night saw 200 films being screened from 58 countries with 7000 delegates in attendance.
"I am very happy and relieved. I am satisfied that we did the best. The reaction has been amazing and we will do our best next year," Kiran said.
However, there have been loopholes, she admitted. "There were lots of things where I think we can improve. We will sit down and do the postmortem. We need more venues as the crowd was more.. people couldn't get in. Then there were technical issues we have to make stronger technical partners. We were a new organisation and there were issues with scheduling, hospitality...we learn from all this," she said.
The festival has been chaotic with delays, cancellations and double-bookings. There were a lot of films that were screened at the festival but the ‘Dhobi Ghat’ director couldn't catch up much on films.
"I have hardly seen any films. I liked ‘Chauti Koot’, Kiran said.
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