Bellucci flying to Mumbai

Hollywood celebrity Monica Bellucci is going to be honoured at the stage of Mumbai Film Festival. The 19th edition of the festival will run from October 12 to18 this year. The event is organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images. Bellucci will be heading to Mumbai after visiting the San Sebastian Festival in Spain, which will run from September 22 to 30, where she will get the Donostia lifetime award. The actress is set to visit India for the first time, and she will be honoured with a special award, organisers said Friday, September 15. The event will also be screening some of her films, including On The Milky Road and Irreversible. In addition, at a master class session, Bellucci will be in conversation with Indian director Anurag Kashyap. The films in the international competition for débutante directors are all in the middle of their global festival runs. They include three that bowed at Cannes – Rungano Nyoni’s I’m Not a Witch, Leonor Serraille’s Montparnasse Bienvenue and Atsuko Hirayanagi’s Oh Lucy!; two that opened at Sundance – John Trengrove’s The Wound, and Jonathan Olshefski’s Quest; two that bowed at SXSW – Ana Asensio’s Most Beautiful Island, and Samir Oliveros’ Bad Luck Goat; and Dan Kokotajlo’s Apostasy that bowed at Toronto; Onur Seylak’s Daha at Karlovy Vary; Ana Urushadze’s Scary Mother at Locarno; and Carla Simon’s Summer 1993 at Berlin. The India Gold competition section has four films that will world première at Busan – Devashish Makhija’s Ajji, Dipesh Jain’s In The Shadows, Pushpendra Singh’s Ashwatthama, and Shlok Sharma’s Zoo. Other titles include Rahul Jain’s Sundance winner Machines, Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s Rotterdam winner Sexy Durga, Karma Takapa’s Karlovy Vary nominated Ralang Road, Rima Das’ Toronto selection Village Rockstars, Miransha Naik’s Hong Kong selection Juze, Anushka Meenakshi and Iswar Srikumar’s Up Down and Sideways, and the Ektara Collective’s Checkmate. The actress is excited about her first visit to Mumbai, she said, “It is very exciting to come to India for the first time.” She also added that, “I am very touched and honoured to receive an award by the Mumbai Film Festival as well as presenting some of my films there.” This year’s edition of the Mumbai festival will see British director John Madden (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) serving as head of the international jury. The festival’s opening film will be Kashyap’s Mukkebaaz (The Brawler), which just premièred at Toronto and will next head to Busan. The festival’s line up features more than 200 films from 49 countries.