Organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (Mami) and supported by the state department of culture, the 15th edition of Mumbai Film Festival will felicitate Academy Award-winner and French filmmaker, Costa-Gavras with its Lifetime Achievement Award. Costa-Gavras is best known for his political thrillers, such as the Best Foreign Language Oscar-winner Z in 1969, Missing in 1982, The Little Apocalypse in 1993 and Amen in 2002. Along with him, legendary Indian actor-director Kamal Haasan will also be bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
“We are honoured to confer the Lifetime Achievement Award to Costa-Gavras. His films have been loved and celebrated by millions of cinema lovers worldwide. We are humbled that he has agreed to receive this award,” said Shyam Benegal, chairman, Mumbai Academy of Moving Image. Speaking about Kamal Haasan, Benegal said, “He is a legend in every sense of the term. He is a writer, singer, director, lyricist and an actor par-excellence. We are also extremely honoured to be presenting the Lifetime Achievement Award to Kamal Haasan.”
Festival director, Srinivasan Narayanan said, “When I think of Costa-Gavras, I am overwhelmed by the elegant, humanist films he has bequeathed to humanity, his gentle nudge to stand up and take a position as he did with his announcement for Z — ‘Any similarity to persons or events is deliberate’. It is our good fortune that we would be receiving him in the Mumbai Film Festival and interacting with him for a whole week.”