The week-long celebration of film, entertainment and culture came to an end here as the Jio MAMI 18th Mumbai Film Festival wrapped up with a prize distribution ceremony.

Graced by Amrita Fadnavis, wife of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, the audience experienced a beautiful evening on Thursday that not only awarded deserving filmmakers but also the authors of film literature.

It was a star studded evening with many personalities from the film fraternity present including Vinod Chopra, Raju Hirani, Richa Chadda, Ayan Mukherjee, Kunal Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Kabir Khan, Vishal Bhardwaj, Sonam Kapoor, Zoya Akhtar among others.

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As lyricist Kausar Munir mentioned that film writing is a genre of literature that has not been considered as a part of mainstream literature, this time the festival opened the door for books in English, Hindi and other language to encourage more authors.

While “Naya Dur Ka Naya Cinema” by Priyadarshan got the best book award in Hindi, Mekhala Sengupta’s book “Kanan Devi, The First Superstar of Indian Cinema” won the best book in English category.

Keeping the importance of film history and literature in mind, the festival awarded film writer Anil Bhargav (Hindi) and Jay Arjun Singh (English) as Excellence in Best Writing category for their book “Bhartiya Cinemas Ki Itihaas” and “The World of Hrishikesh Mukherjee: The Filmmaker Everyone Loves”, respectively.

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Actress Sonam Kapoor said, “Being a voracious reader, I believe that a good story is a key element of many things. Our Bollywood films are changing and now we celebrate content more. Even my film Aisha was based on a book.”

“Most of my favourite films like ‘The Godfather’, ‘Gone with The Wind’ is based on books. So I support and really appreciate the initiative by Jio MAMI,” she added.

This year the festival turned out to be very special for Konkona Sen Sharma. As she made her debut this year as a filmmaker with “The Death Of Gunj”, she won the best Indian Female Director Award.

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On the other hand, “Lipstick Under My Burkha” won the Best Film on Gender Equality Award and Konkona received the award on the behalf of the team.

The much anticipated independent film /short films category turned out to be very promising this year with some brilliant pieces of cinematic work.

While “Mumbai’s Mahuva” by Santosh Amble won the Golden Gateway on Dimensions Mumbai category, “The Saleman” won the Audience Choice Award.

“Lady Of The Lake” by Haobam Paban Kumar won the Golden Gateway from India Gold category, whereas in international competition section young French filmmaker Davy Chou won the Golden Gateway for his film “Diamond Island”.

Kiran Rao, the chairperson of Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival closed the ceremony with a vote of thanks to all the sponsors and teammates declaring the date of next year’s festival to be between November 12 to 19, 2017.

IANS