Curtains come down on MAMI film festival

A still from Haobam Paban Kumar's The Lady of the Lake, which won the Golden Gateway Award in the India Gold category

There was cheer at the closing ceremony of the 18th Mumbai Film Festival held at a suburban auditorium on Thursday evening. Cinema aficionados were treated to some of the finest movies from across the globe. Chairperson Kiran Rao arrived early to personally look into the arrangements while festival director Anupama Chopra played the perfect host, chatting up filmmakers and actors who graced the occasion.

As Anupama engaged Kapoor & Sons director Shakun Batra in a conversation, Masaan co-stars Richa Chadha, Vicky Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi had a reunion of sorts as they bumped into each other on the red carpet. Vicky and Shweta also took on the role of emcees for the evening and kept the audience entertained with one-liners.

David Chou's Diamond Island bagged the top honour in the international section

Even at the venue where off-beat cinema is revered more, superstar Sanjay Dutt's entry set the ball rolling. His Munnabhai director Vidhu Vinod Chopra and writer Abhijat Joshi engaged in banter on the red carpet and their jovial mood was peppered with ample jaadoo ki jhappis. Of course, question about the third sequel of the Munnabhai series was inevitable and Joshi was quick to reply saying, "I am game for the next Munnabhai. Once we have a script, we will start rolling."

Fashionista Sonam Kapoor upped the glam quotient in an edgy, checkered pantsuit. It was a moment of jubilation for Konkana Sensharma, who won the Best Female Filmmaker for her debut directorial Death In The Gunj. Her longtime friend Vishal Bhardwaj showered on her the choicest words of praise. Filmmakers from parallel worlds - Ayan Mukerji and Anurag Kashya - bonded over their love for the movie as they posed for the paps with Amruta Fadnavis, wife of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.