It’s get-set-go for the recently appointed Mumbai Film Festival leadership team that is busy gearing up for the 17th Mumbai Film Festival scheduled to be held from October 29 – November 5, 2015.

The MAMI team is happy to announce a collaboration between the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI) and Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) that will include a series of workshops led by Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director, TIFF and Natalie Lue, Vice-President, Production and Visitor Experience, TIFF. They will visit Mumbai this week to share their experience, learnings and insights over the years from TIFF with the MAMI team. TIFF is recognised as one of the most successful Film Festivals around the world. Traditionally, many Best Picture Oscar winners come out of the Toronto Film Festival.

The workshops have been enabled by the generous support of the Canadian General Counsel of Mumbai. Welcoming the TIFF team to Mumbai, Mr. Richard Bale, Consul General of Canada in Mumbai said, “TIFF is one of the world’s premier film events and the Consulate is very pleased to support the visit of its Artistic Director Cameron Bailey. We look forward to ongoing collaboration between TIFF and MAMI in the coming years. The Consulate’s support is part of our ongoing promotion of the Canada-India Audiovisual Coproduction Treaty, which came into force on July 1, 2014. The Treaty facilitates and provides incentives to Canadian and Indian producers and filmmakers to combine their creative, technical and financial resources to create joint work.”

Cameron Bailey, Artistic Director of the Toronto International Film Festival, said: “Mumbai is one of the world’s great film cities and deserves a great film festival. I was impressed by how the city’s film community rallied to support MAMI last year.

The Toronto International Film Festival is glad to help our colleagues in Mumbai build a strong, sustainable celebration of cinema”.

Kiran Rao, Chairperson, MAMI, said: “The Toronto International Film Festival is one of the leading festivals of the world, and we’re really excited to have the Artistic Director Mr Cameron Bailey here in Mumbai to do a workshop with us as we create a new blueprint for the Mumbai Film Festival. My film “Dhobi Ghat” premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, and as a filmmaker I couldn’t have asked for a better platform as it is truly one of the most well attended, audience-friendly festivals in the world. We are really grateful that he is taking the time out to do this with us and we look forward to gaining many insights from his experience.”

The recently appointed MAMI team members who will put together their expertise and experience to bring Mumbai and India a bigger, better and even more exciting 17th edition of the Mumbai Film Festival that include Chairperson, Kiran Rao and Festival Director, Anupama Chopra. The members of the new Board of Trustees are Filmmakers Anurag Kashyap, Farhan Akhtar, Karan Johar, Vikramaditya Motwane, Actor Riteish Deshmukh, Actress Deepika Padukone, Mr. Anand Mahindra, Chairman & MD, Mahindra Group, Mr. Ajay Bijli, Chairman and MD, PVR Pvt. and Mr. Siddharth Roy Kapur, MD, Disney.