Mumbai Film Festival is definitely the main film festival in India, thanks to the efforts of Anupama Chopra, Kiran Rao, Smriti Kiran and Kalpana Nair in the last few years. The 21st edition of the festival will be held from 17 – 24 October 2019, just prior to Diwali on 27 October 2019, as usual to the festival schedule. And they have announced their opening film.
Moothon by Geetu Mohandas will be Opening Film this year. The title translates from Malayalam to The Elder Brother. The bilingual film in Malayalam and Hindi will play with English subtitles.
The movie stars Nivin Pauly as Mullakoya, a man from Lakshadweep who is on a journey to find his brother. Moothon is “island slang” for elder brother, wherein the voiceover describes Mullakoya as a “swine” who came from the island. The film tells the tale of a 10-year-old boy, living on an island, who sets off on a journey in pursuit of Akbar (Nivin), his long lost elder brother. Watch the teaser.
The film also stars Sobhita Dhulipala, Shashank Arora, Harish Khanna, Roshan Mathew, Dileesh Pothan, Harish Khanna, Sujith Shankar, and Melissa Raju Thomas. We will have to wait for the trailer to see more about their characters.
This is Mohandas’s second feature as a director after the National Film Award-winning Liar’s Dice, starring Geetanjali Thapa and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2014. Mohandas, who has written and directed Moothon, won the Global Filmmaking Award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival for the script, along with four other filmmakers.
The true independent film circuit film has Malayalam dialogues by Sreeja Sreedharan, Hindi dialogues by Anurag Kashyap, shot by Rajeev Ravi (also her spouse), and has been edited by Ajith Kumar B and Kiran Das. The original score is by Sagar Desai, the sound design is by Kunal Sharma and production design by Abid TP.
Moothon makes its World Premiere on 17 October 2019 in Mumbai at the 21st Mumbai Film Festival. And we are looking forward to it.