The festival's exciting and youngest section will celebrate the digital narrative through the best web series of India.

Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival with Star is back with its exciting and youngest section, PLAY, which celebrates the digital narrative through the best web series of India. And this time, in its second edition, PLAY will feature an entire day’s programming, including world premieres of upcoming series as well as two panels featuring the who’s who of digital in India.

PLAY will have three sessions on October 23, 2016 at PVR Icon, Andheri. The first and second session will feature an episode each of the best fiction and non-fiction series of some of the country’s biggest digital players like TVF, Y-Films, ScoopWhoop and Voot. The two sessions will also feature a panel each on the creative and business aspects of storytelling.

Panel one will be a writers’ panel featuring the likes of exciting digital stars: Actor Sumeet Vyas, Creative Director TVF – Nidhi Bisht, Co-founder ScoopWhoop Media- Sattvik Mishra, Writer Varun Grover, Producer and Actor- Preetika Chawla and Writer and Actor-Naveen Richard in conversation with co-curator of PLAY, Shreevasta Nevatia. This panel will discuss the topic, “Will the Indian web series only ever tell the stories of its young audience?”

The second panel, a business panel, will comprise the country’s leading digital names like Group CEO Balaji Telefilms – Sameer Nair, Director Rohan Sippy, Actor and Producer- Anand Tiwari, Head TVF Originals- Sameer Saxena, CEO Y-Films- Ashish Patil and Actor Swara Bhaskar in conversation with co-curator and programmer of PLAY, Nikhil Taneja. This panel will seek answers to the contentious topic, “Is the web series model in a country like India even sustainable? Or is it a bubble waiting to burst?”

The third session will comprise world premieres of web series that fans can see exclusively before they are made available online. Digital superstars like comedian Kaneez Surka, SnG Comedy’s Brij Bhakta, writer and storyteller Neelesh Mishra will all premiere their new shows, and a highlight promises to be the comeback of the lord of horror, Shyam Ramsay, with a new series called Reloaded (by 101 India).

Programmer and Co-Curator of PLAY, Nikhil Taneja, said, “The definition of film has changed from cinema to vine, from video to digital, from theater to mobile. As the internet generation goes from being consumer to creator, stories are now first being told through the multi-part web series. This is the exciting milieu of MAMI’s youngest section, PLAY and in its second edition, with its juicy lineup of digital stars and awesome shows, it promises to be a highlight of the festival!”

PLAY, in its all-new avatar, seeks to celebrate multi-part storytelling through digital content. Content available on this format is unabashed, uncensored and unpredictable and that makes PLAY of, by and for the uncompromising film fan, who believes that medium is temporary, narrative is permanent.