22 December,2022 05:42 AM IST | Mumbai | Team mid-day
Pic/Ashish Raje
A gardener plants saplings atop a bus stop in Mahalaxmi.
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Throughout his lifetime, filmmaker Manmohan Desai was shunned by international film festivals. The filmmaker's greatest hits were admired by the masses of single-screen cinema. But one of his greatest works, Amar Akbar Anthony (1977), will be the first Desai film to be viewed by a festival crowd as part of the Cinema Regained focus at the upcoming International Film Festival of Rotterdam in January 2023. "Our recent run of Amitabh Bachchan's films on the big screen and its reception by the audiences interested the festival. It feels amazing that such an important and artistic film festival has chosen to screen the film," said Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, founder, Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), that restored the film.
The festival will also screen Sanjiv Shah's Hun Hunshi Hunshilal (1992) and Nandita Das' Firaaq (2008), also restored by the foundation, at the festival. "It feels good to see these films deservedly reach a wider audience," Dungarpur added. The filmmaker's acting debut as a cop will also feature at the festival. Ranjan Palit's A Knock On The Door is part of the festival's selections.
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The work of artists at Kochi Biennale Foundation might adorn the livery of your next flight. The art festival has tied up with Air India and Air India Express that will offer special flights to fly artists and enthusiasts to Kochi from international and domestic destinations for the duration of the festival. The collaboration extends beyond this courtesy though. The festival will display five murals highlighting international destinations. A new Boeing 737-800 will also carry tail art designed by artists at the Biennale Foundation.
The walls are beginning to speak at Sassoon Dock in Colaba. Over the last month, warehouses have transformed into canvases for artists participating in the Mumbai Urban Art Festival that opened yesterday. Among them is Mayur Vayeda whose 9,000 square feet mural on the central building of the dock land will be open to the public. "The idea emerged from how creatures, seas and plants are shaped and influenced by sea currents. Similarly, plastic has moved through these currents and affected human life and sea creatures. We are using the traditional form to tell new stories." The Warli artist and his team spent over five weeks on the mural with a team of eight artists working on the walls. "The idea was to revive Warli art with our first major work in the city." Vayeda added that the artwork had a direct connection to the Warli community with five young female artists also contributing to the mural. A welcome addition to the cityscape.
As a resident of Chembur, restaurateur Neeti Goel - who runs Keiba in Mahalaxmi and Ostaad in Lower Parel - has always felt that the Eastern suburb lacks a good dining scene, especially when it comes to dimsums or sushi. To cater to the area and diners who trudge in from neighbouring locales of Ghatkopar or Vashi, Goel is set to open a new eatery, House of Ko in the suburb. "Ko is a portmanteau of the first letters of the other two restaurants, whose specialities [Asian, Mediterranean and Indian] will be on offer here. There will also be an all-day European café menu," she said. There will be sugar-free cocktails for patrons to sip on, too, at the 3,000-sq ft eatery which opens its doors this month.
The Shillong Chamber Choir was back in town yesterday for a performance in Bandra, the queen of the suburbs. Lead singer William Richmond Basaiawmoit called the return a special performance. "We relate to the audience in Mumbai, and they relate to us. It is a very responsive communication between artistes and the audience," he said. The choir set the tone for Christmas in Bandra with a diverse rendition. "We put up a performance that spanned across eight to 10 genres, and languages," Basaiawmoit revealed. From pop to rock to Western classical and Hindustani, it was quite a selection. But there was something traditional as well for those in the audience. "We also sang in the language that was spoken during the birth of Christ. That is something special which has not been attempted before," the singer remarked, adding that Christmas is often seen as a Westernised festival with its snow and reindeer. "People forget that it is a Middle-Eastern story. We introduced that element in our performance in Bandra,"
he shared.
