MAMI’s MFF: The 25 obstacles you have to cross before you DO NOT get a Press badge
To get a Press badge from the Mumbai Film Festival, a suggestion they make on their web site and never one thing the press calls for or coerces them to do, is a a number of stage course of. And this occurs solely at MFF. Here are the 25 levels I had to undergo, from 10 October 2024 to 6.32 October 2024, and I nonetheless don’t have a Badge. This is the way it begins 1. You both examine Registrations being open or get an e mail to that impact.
2. You click on on three totally different pages for registrations as a Press Person. Why three pages? God is aware of.
3. You get a Google Form that signifies specs of its calls for. These embrace a image of specified pixel and dpi dimension, hyperlinks to earlier articles in pdf format solely, your fb, X, YouTube and Instagram credentials, and so on.
4. Once you submit this way, you get a message on the display that you might be knowledgeable in your registered e mail handle about additional developments. You don’t get to retain a copy of what you have submitted, so there isn’t any proof that you did, and no proof concerning the date and time when you did.
5. Then, you might or might not get an e mail saying that your Application has been efficiently registered.
6. You might or might not get a message from BookMyShow that you can acquire your Badge from the venues, 15 October onwards. (I had crossed the entire above mountains).
7. When you go to the venue, between 10 am and 5 pm, strictly, which is even lower than native authorities and banking hours, you journey to the venue and queue up.
8. When your flip comes, the BookMyShow Supervisor on responsibility might or might not inform you that your Application has been permitted and your Badge is prepared. (In my case she mentioned neither was my Badge prepared nor did my title determine in any of the lists she had, both beneath my first title, my surname, my e mail id or the title of the publication I used to be going to write for).
I took a printout at 1.03 pm, on seventeenth October, and carried the doc to PVR INOX. As it turned out, the doc I used to be carrying was price Zilch. Zero. Nothing. Trash.
9. You apply a second time, going by the grind. This time there may be a (*25*) Id on the return e mail, with a QR Code. Bingo. You suppose the worst is over.
10. You go to the venue once more, on the nineteenth, queue up, and when your flip comes, your printout of the (*25*) Id and QR, plus your Aadhaar Card are handed from reserving clerk to reserving clerk. Finally, the identical Supervisor woman, who had attended to me on the fifteenth, comes and tells you that your Application has not been permitted.
11. She additionally provides that in such circumstances, MAMI sends out emails saying that the Accreditation has been denied, however she has no concept why it was not despatched to me.
12. I inform her that the (*25*) Id and QR Code have been generated by BookMyShow, so it’s now accountable to give me my Badge. She shrugs her shoulders and says that in spite of everything these proceedings, there may be nonetheless one other e mail that confirms your Approval, or informs you about denial of approval, which is lacking in my case.
13. You ask her whether or not any MAMI official is current, to whom this difficulty may be addressed. She says they’re there on the entrance, close to the steps.
14. You go there and ask round. One younger man, in his early 20s tries, to be very useful, and says that there are a number of others who have come to him with the identical downside, however he’s a junior volunteer, and his boss, a woman, a MAMI senior official, who might handle this difficulty has gone for lunch.
15. You look forward to a jiffy after which ask him when will she be again, however he has no concept.
16. Trying to be good, he says that he’ll permit you to go up, even with out the badge, since you have the (*25*) Id and QR Code. You are impressed.
17. You go up to the auditorium stage and test which is the earliest subsequent movie, and what time will it begin. Nobody has a schedule or a catalogue. A couple of volunteers Google and inform you that the following movie is at 3.30, and that there isn’t any movie in any auditorium beginning before that.
18. It is 2.20 pm, however you resolve to wait and watch, having come all the best way.
19. The queue strikes, your flip comes. “Sorry! No badge, no entry.”
20. You discover Aditi (the Creative Director of MFF) standing subsequent to you and clarify your downside. She asks what publication you write for. You give her the title. She Googles in a second and lands on the web page the place the positioning is beneath renovation and reconstruction, whereas the common website, which may be very a lot on, has a hyperlink that wants us to add yet one more phrase to the url to get to the present website. This website accommodates 1,600 articles written by you. You attempt to inform her to go to this website.
21. She passes you on to two Public Relations Agency guys, Prathamesh and Shams, who say they may type all of it out if I ship them copies of all communications I have acquired from MAMI and BookMyShow to this point, and Prathamesh takes a image of your (*25*) Id and QR Code
22. After you ship/ahead Prathamesh some 9 emails, he says it can take a few hours to get my Badge.
23. Prathamesh has given you his e mail id and quantity, whereas Shams offers solely his quantity. From 3 pm to 6.30 pm, they refuse to reply any mail, and SMS, any telephone name, any WhatsApp message.
24. At 6.30, Prathamesh solutions my telephone. I ask him why did he not name again in two minutes, one thing he had promised at 4.30. he says he’s very busy and has no time for me, however will name undoubtedly within the subsequent 5 minutes. I ask him whether or not I can attend the remaining exhibits on the identical day. he says no. Approval will take a day and getting a Badge will take one other day. I might count on some motion by Monday. I ma flabbergasted at his insolence.
25. Between 4 pm and 6.29 pm, neither Prathamesh nor Shams reply any of my dozenjs of calls or reply to any messages or emails.
His 5 minute call-back, promised at about 6.30 pm on nineteenth October, is 1,275 minutes overdue, on the time of posting this.
