Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2023: Shivamma, Mithya, Pedro, Koli Taal at prestigious fest

If Rakshit Shetty and Rishab Shetty are not directing or acting, the duo, more often than not, is busy supporting upcoming talent through their respective production houses. Rishab Shetty, for instance, has produced two festival darlings, Natesh Hegde’s Pedro and Jaishankar Aryar’s Shivamma, and is backing the former’s next, Vaghachipani as well. While Rakshit’s production ventures have a more big-screen commercial bent, he has been toying with offbeat cinema too, and has backed Sumanth Bhat’s Mithya.

Jaishankar’s Shivamma and Sumanth’s Mithya are among the top contenders at the 2023 edition of the Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, which is set to kick off on October 27 and will go on till November 5, in the South Asian category. The Kannada contingent at the festival also includes Natesh’s Pedro and Abhilash Shetty’s Koli Taal, both of which were part of previous editions and, hence, feature in the recap category.

Shivamma is the tale of the title character, a mother of two with an ailing husband, whose dreams of making a quick buck through a pyramid scheme of a nutritional product falls apart. Mithya, meanwhile, is about a 11-year-old boys struggle to cope with the death of his parents. The film gets its world premiere at the film festival.

Pedro, which stars Natesh’s father Gopal Hegde in the title role is about how he becomes a social outcast after he accidentally shoots a cow, while Koli Taal follows an aged couple’s attempts to make their grandson’s favourite chicken curry, only to find that the rooster earmarked for the dish has gone missing.

The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival will be held across multiple locations in Mumbai. As many as 250 films will be screened, including Bradley Cooper’s Maestro, Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy, Rajat Kapoor’s Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa, Tahira Kashyap’s Sharmajee Ki Beti, Strange Way of Life by Pedro Almodovar, Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, The Red Suitcase by Fidel Devkota, among others.