'Cruel irony': Hansal Mehta reacts to cancellation of MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2025
The decision was taken to revamp the festival with a "dynamic vision" and a "new team" to ensure that it will return as a premier showcase for the best of independent, regional, and classic cinema from India and around the world, said festival director
Dungarpur in a statement.
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"We are working diligently to reschedule the festival and will announce the new dates for the 2026 edition as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding and support," he added.
The move comes as a major hiccup for the festival that has had a fair run since it was founded in 1997.
Reacting to the same, filmmaker
, whose 'Aligarh' and 'The Buckingham Murders' were earlier premiered at the festival, voiced his discontent.
"It's a cruel irony that Mumbai draped in the glitz of being India's financial and cinematic capital cannot keep alive a film festival of its own," the filmmaker wrote on social media.
He went on to call out the "self-appointed gatekeepers of cinema" who left the festival for better stages and safer bets, further adding that only a few "passionate believers" took care of it.
"And now that fragile flame has been snuffed out.
No ceremony. No outrage. Just a slow, silent forgetting. What should have been a cultural cornerstone has been reduced to a footnote - another casualty of apathy dressed as progress," Mehta concluded.
Many took to the comment section and echoed similar sentiments.
Filmmaker Onir wrote, "Heartbreaking that the industry that produces the largest number of films ... failed to nurture this one space that celebrated cinema as a form of art ...
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beyond box office and stars ., what a loss for the city and a shame for us as an industry."
Organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), the film festival has emerged as a hub for the world to discover emerging South Asian talent and contemporary cinema. Several leading Bollywood celebrities like Priyanka Chopra, Farhan Khan,
, and
, have been associated with the festival over the years.
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