Anurag Kashyap's favourite story of all time

Raja Sen brings us all the action from the first day of the 16th Mumbai Film Festival.

"This is my favourite, favourite story," Anurag Kashyap said to me at the after-party, grinning as wide as humanly possible and poking a young filmmaker in the ribs, literally prodding him to tell the tale.

Jayakrishnan Subramanian, an afro-sporting Tamilian filmmaker, shyly explained that he -- as a movie-buff at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad -- had created a poster for Anurag's film Gulaal, and it was through looking at that poster online (image below) that Franziska Schonenberger, a German girl, first got interested in him and connected with him.

Not just did Shonenberger and Subramanian get married, but the pair co-directed a documentary about their (very different) parental reactions to the Indo-German match.

Amma & Appa, having premiered to warm applause at Berlin earlier this year, will have its Indian premiere at the Mumbai Film Festival. (And yes, Mr Kashyap, well done!)

There was, thus, a fair bit of parental hoo-ha at the Opening Ceremony, what with Akshay Kumar deciding that we mistreat old people and showing a short film that ended with a quote -- printed on the screen starkly, white text on black -- that said "Take care of them when they are old. They took care of you when you were young" and was credited, miraculously without irony, to the actor himself.

This alleged profundity aside, the Opening Ceremony -- which felicitated screen veterans Catherine Deneuve and Helen with Lifetime Achievement Awards -- went off smoothly enough, with Kalki Koechlin (and her teleprompter) doing a smart job hosting.

Juhu's Chandan Cinema, thanks to production designer Nitin Desai, had been given an old-Hollywood style marquee, all diffused-flashbulbs and dazzle, and looked quite welcoming -- except for the fact that the 16th Mumbai Film Festival had been titled instead the name of its parent body, the Mumbai Academy Of The Moving Image.

And while the words 'MAMI FILM FESTIVAL' might be used as shorthand by many of us, seeing them up there all bright and large did make it appear like this was a festival exclusively committed to movies for/by/about South-Indian aunties. (Which might, in itself, not be a bad idea. But here it seemed a trifle jarring.)

Inside, everyone was in great spirits.

Chinese actress Bai Ling took a bunch of selfies, film-buffs swarmed around Rajkumar Hirani, journalists from around the world caught up with each other and bemoaned the fact that -- thanks to the Mumbai assembly elections -- it was a dry day and there would be no liquor, Rahul Bose shook everybody's hand, and a bunch of people who weren't Anupama Chopra fans appeared disgruntled by the fact that the whole ceremony seemed like a tribute to the critic because of her tireless fundraising efforts that made the festival possible.

The opening night film, Serena -- starring the silver-lined pair of Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper -- was dismissed by too many as an absolute bore, and most attendees stood around in the lobby justifiably calling the samosas cardboardy.

And then, three hours after the time on the invitation card, Deepika Padukone sashayed in and the crowd swooned.

As Mumbai as it gets, this night.