The Mumbai Film Festival or MAMI Film Festival, as we call it, in auntyish slang, has just celebrated its 20th anniversary. I have seen the festival's many avatars over the years. We have traipsed to various venues, from IMAX Wadala (you had to beg autos to take you there), YB Chavan and Ravindra Natya Mandir, to NCPA, Le Rêve and PVR at Icon, Citimall, Phoenix Mills and Kurla. The first decade was a simpler time, 'batata wada days' (Rs 10 for two), compared to today's strictly bookmyshow online ticket booking, when you need to shell out nearly Rs 500 for a Coke and popcorn.

I have been closely involved with the festival over the decades in various ways. I was International Cinema Programmer for the Mumbai Film Festival when Srinivasan Narayanan headed it, and had attended the Cannes Film Festival in 2009 to select films for the festival. I've also been moderator, doing three to four Q&As a day with international and national filmmakers and stars for over a decade, when Sudhir Nandgaonkar was Festival Director. The Q&As continued after, both for the festival and the Rendezvous with French Cinema, which was often a part of the festival. I was mentor on the festival's first Mumbai Young Critics' Lab in 2015, along with Peter Bradshaw, the Guardian's beloved critic. And, I am a part of Point of View, a non-profit that amplifies women's voices, that organised inclusive screenings of MAMI films, for the blind and sighted. We did 'audio description' of films for the blind, describing action when there is no dialogue, for Tu Hai Mera Sunday in 2016 and Turup (Checkmate) in 2017.