Film industry the world over has suffered the most because of the Coronavirus crisis, its effects have been devastating. Big film festivals like Cannes and Tribeca cancelled, others like Venice Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival are sticking to their scheduled dates. Even if these festivals go ahead as per plans, the audience might not come in the same numbers as earlier. It is indeed a tough time but a good news has come today.
Tribeca Enterprises and Youtube are bringing the good news. Together they are organising and producing a digital event ‘We Are One: A global film festival’ from May 29 till June 7. The once in a lifetime event is providing people the opportunity to watch over 100 films access curated by 21 festivals. In addition to films, the event will also feature VR content, talks and musical performances. Two Indian feature films and a couple of short films handpicked by the JIO MAMI Mumbai Film Festival will feature in the festival.
The Indian films are as follows Arun Karthick’s Nasir (fiction, feature), Prateek Vats’ Eeb Allay Ooo! (fiction, feature), Atul Mongia’s Awake (fiction, short) and Shaan Vyas’ Natkhat (fiction, short). The artistic director of the JIO MAMI Mumbai Film Festival said this about the films handpicked:
“Eeb Allay Ooo!, Natkhat, Nasir, and Awake represent urgent, relevant and diverse aspects of India and the world. We Are One is a milestone endeavour for us to stand in solidarity with the global film community and an incredible opportunity and platform to put some of our best new cinematic voices out in the world.”
The good news for people is that the festival is absolutely free to access and one can choose to donate for the COVID-19 relief efforts through a link. A great initiative indeed.