Marathi cinema gets its first international film festival; MIFF to be held in New Jersey, US next year

There are many international festivals dedicated solely to Indian cinema, like the New York Indian Film Festival, India International Film Festival of Boston and the London Indian Film Festival. Now Marathi cinema gets its first-ever international film festival. The first edition of the Marathi International Film Festival (MIFF) will be held in New Jersey, US next year.

Revealing details about it, festival director Nita Pednekar Patel said, “Marathi International Film Festival (MIFF) is the first-ever Marathi film festival to be organized outside Maharashtra and India. MIFF's mission is to promote Marathi culture and music through the art of cinema across the world. The first edition of MIFF is going to take place in the United States."

Patel added, "Today Marathi cinema produces over 100 films every year. Many new voices like Nagaraj Manjule (Sairat), Chaitanya Tamhane (Court), Avinash Arun (Killa) have emerged on the national and international arena from Marathi cinema. With such original content and legacy, it was time that Marathi cinema got its first international film festival."

The festival director further said that all regional distributors and exhibitors from across the US would attend the festival. Well-known art director Nitin Chandrakant Desai and producer Ashok Subhedar of the Madhuri Dixit-starrer Bucket List (2018) fame, have been selected as jury members, while filmmaker Hemant Pandya has been appointed as technical director.

 MIFF has started accepting entries for the first edition through film freeway. Marathi filmmakers and producers can submit their films through filmfreeway.com.