There’s only one thing nicer than going to a film festival where you have a film showing. And that’s going to a film festival where you don’t have a film showing. Last week, I got to do both.

A film we made as part of our work at Agents of Ishq, was in competition at the Mumbai International Film Festival of Documentary, Shorts and Animation. I have been attending the festival from the time it started in 1990, when it was BIFF and I was a student; and through later years, when Mumbai became Bombay, the festival became MIFF and I became a filmmaker. Being government run, the festival has its chequered political history. It can also feel impersonal. Yet, as you attended over time, whether audience or filmmaker, a certain intimacy develops. You got to know regular audiences. You spent days watching films with old friends and new, chatting over lunch and coffee and drinks, showing visiting filmmakers your city. You come to love someone’s work, learn from and look forward to it—and they to yours. As a young filmmaker you may find that an older filmmaker you admire has seen and loved your film, and pleasure makes confidence bloom. Friendships grow through time spent together. Connections form, of encouragement. Some end up working together, or loving together. Over the years, that’s how you become part of a wider community, by taking an interest in each other, and the worlds we each carry with us. Professional identities may help start a community, but they aren’t enough to sustain it. Friendship makes community and belonging more possible.