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It was night around 10:30, i had finished watching the cricket match, and was just switching channels, and then i saw the news item. At first it was like a shootout at Taj Heritage, and then as the reports started to filter in, the magnitude of the terror became more apparent to me. I simply could not say “Oh no, not again” and then just switch channels. Because what was happening was not just another terror attack, it was a literal war. As i saw coverage of cops firing, people running, some people being evacuated, and dead bodies, it seemed straight out of some Warner Bros flick. Except that this was not movies, this was real life. And we did not have a John McLane like super hero, gunning down terrorists. What we had were cops and armed forces, fighting a battle against a bunch …

Mumbai Cutting – A City Unfolds, a potpourri of short films created by a combination of 11 top-notch and newbie directors as an ode to the ‘dream city’ of India, is an important work of cinema in more ways than one despite its uneven character. Modelled on Paris, j t’aime (Paris, I Love You), a compendium of 18 short films made by 21 directors as a tribute to the spirit to the City of Love, and its under-production sequel New York, I Love You, it takes a varied look at the city which in recent times have been more in news for its rain-water floods and anti-North Indian stance of Raj Thackeray-led Maharashtra Navanirman Sena rather than its other multi-hued characteristics that make it the Maximum City.

But its importance goes beyond the fact that it perhaps signals the acceptance in the film world about the possibilities of short films as …