MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2025 Cancelled; New Dates For 2026 Edition To Be Announced Soon

The MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, that has been the premier film festival in the city for almost three decades, won't be held this year. The 2025 edition of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival is cancelled.

The social media handles of the festival shared a statement from festival Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur on Monday (July 21) morning. The reason for the cancellation is the ongoing process of revamping the festival. The new dates for MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2026 will be announced as soon as possible.

MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2025 cancelled

Making the important announcement, Dungarpur wrote, "This is to inform you that the 2025 edition of MAMI Mumbai Film Festival will not take place as we are in the process of revamping the festival with a dynamic vision and a new team to ensure that the festival returns as a premier showcase for the best of independent, regional and classic cinema from India and around the world."

He added, "We are working diligently to reschedule the festival and will announce the new dates for the 2026 edition as soon as possible."

The director also thanked fans for understanding and their support.

MAMI Mumbai Film Festival is cancelled for the first time in 28 years. Reacting to the cancellation, filmmaker Hansal Mehta wrote on X, "It’s a cruel irony that Mumbai draped in the glitz of being India’s financial and cinematic capital cannot keep alive a film festival of its own. Abandoned by the self-appointed gatekeepers of cinema who chased shinier stages and safer bets it was left in the hands of a few passionate believers to run on pure faith. And now that fragile flame has been snuffed out. No ceremony. No outrage. Just a slow, silent forgetting. What should have been a cultural cornerstone has been reduced to a footnote - another casualty of apathy dressed as progress (sic)".

Founded in 1997 by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), the event has become world’s most prestigious South Asian Film Festival. Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light was the opening film of MAMI 2024, and it closed with Sean Baker’s Anora.

The 2023 edition of the festival was sponsored by Jio, but they dropped out as the sponsor last year.