Film festivals need support of govt and stars: Dibakar Banerjee

Mumbai: Filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee has said film festivals need the support of both the government as well as movie stars to gain popularity.

"A festival needs attention and interest from all quarters right from government to stars so that glamour value comes in. I think MAMI has become a good example of everything. It is giving a lot to the audience... The kind of films that will be showcased," Dibakar told PTI.

Dibarkar, 46, said he was amazed with the opening ceremony of the 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival that was inaugurated by Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at the

Gateway of India and saw a huge presence of Bollywood.

"I saw the opening ceremony... It was relaxed and glamorous and that is how a festival should be like," he said.

The jury for Dimensions Mumbai, a short film competition, will be headed by Dibakar Banerjee and joining him will be Juhi Chaturvedi, Radhika Apte, Parineeti Chopra and Suraj Sharma.

"We saw dimensional short films on the theme of Bombay. All of us saw some refreshing and not so refreshing take on Bombay. It was educative. We were happy as we could pick up gems...

The talent is encouraging," Dibakar said.

The eight-day festival has been organised by Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI) with Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) and Star India.

Dibakar, who has produced his protege Kanu Behl's family film "Titli", is quite excited as well as nervous about the movie that hit cinema houses today.

"I am excited, happy and extremely nervous. "Titli" has had the least of all... The smallest production budget in the history of Indian contemporary filmmaking. We are relying in word of mouth the buzz is unprecedented," he said.

"I am hoping it to be the strongest debut of Indian cinema... It should get its due share of audience that is why I am nervous and excited," he added.

"Titli" is being presented by Yash Raj Films. It stars newcomers Shashank Arora and Shivani Raghuvanshi, actors Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial and Lalit Behl.

The film is a tale of a dysfunctional family from Delhi and a man's struggle to escape his oppressive environment.