Filmed on iPhone: Four emerging directors showcase their work at MAMI Film Festival 2026

Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) has kicked of annual film festival at India's financial capital, which is also the home to the country's Hindi film industry, Bollywood.

As part of the 'Jio MAMI Select – Filmed on iPhone' programme 2026, four talented filmmakers-- Shreela Agarwal, Ritesh Sharma, Robin Joy, and Dhritisree Sarkar-- were selected to showcase their creativity.

Also, the winners received invaluable mentorship from a distinguished panel of filmmakers, including multiple National Award-winning director Sriram Raghavan, distinguished filmmaker Dibakar Banerjee, the highly acclaimed filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane and renowned writer-director Geetu Mohandas, who is soon expected to release the big-budget Yash-starrer Toxic movie in theatres later this year.

From pre-production to post-production, mentors guide the creators to refine their storytelling using cutting-edge editing technology.

All four filmmakers made good use of the pro camera system, cinema-grade video capabilities, and advanced features of the iPhone 17 Pro Max, as well as the MacBook Pro with M5 and the iPad Pro with M5 for additional support for editing work.

The completed short films premiered on the MAMI YouTube channel, ensuring widespread accessibility and audience engagement.

It should be noted that last year's short movies-- 'Seeing Red' crossed a million views on YouTube, and Kovarty won Best Short Film at the Bengaluru International Short Film Festival.

Shreela Agarwal's '11.11— a love letter to Mumbai after dark'

Agarwal's short movie tells the story of two women on a first date. Her protagonists walk and dance under city streetlights and on dim beaches, presenting challenging lighting conditions. This is where the iPhone 17 Pro Max's camera comes in handy to capture the night's natural darkness and also, with whatever little light is available, be able to capture the subjects clearly.

Agarwal shoots in low-light conditions using ProRes RAW on iPhone 17 Pro Max. “You don’t need those massive lights that independent filmmakers could never really afford anyway,” she says.

“We tested iPhone 17 Pro Max in a very unique way. The dynamism and rhythm are only possible because of the iPhone. “The freedom, simply put, is unmatched," said Agarwal.

The ProRes RAW data capture allowed her team to push the ISO in post-production.

The high-performance codec has a wider colour gamut with minimal upfront processing. Its wider dynamic range let her team recover details in dark scenes, leading to a significantly brighter and crisper image in comparison to what the naked eye saw on set. Adjusting the tint and white balance also allowed them to homogenise the colours of streetlamps and retain a natural look.

Ritesh Sharma's 'She Sells Seashells'

Born in Varanasi, one of the world's most ancient cities, Sharma grew up with a rich tradition of storytelling.

Ritesh Sharma uses the Blackmagic Camera app on iPhone 17 Pro Max while framing Maruti, his film’s protagonist, selling trinkets on the beach.

Sharma's short movie 'She Sells Seashells' revolves around Maruti, a 17-year-old Rajasthani migrant who sells trinkets on the beach, and her dream of stepping inside an upmarket seaside restaurant in Goa.

To capture nature's raw roaring power for the Arabian Sea's waves and the chaos of Goa’s carnival, he used the iPhone 17 Pro Max's Audio Mix. He was able to pick and choose sounds he needed, culling wind and background noise to create a precise audio of the surrounding environment of the scene.

He also used a MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro as a second screen to edit the movie. “I felt like a moving studio. “During preproduction, I’d record whatever I was hearing with the native mics on iPhone, transfer the file, and edit it right away on MacBook Pro," said Sharma.

Robin Roy's 'Pathanam (Paradise Fall)'

Roy's short movie Pathanam is the story of an angel who collapses in the backyard of an atheist — and the sociopolitical chaos that ensues.

Cinematographer Naseem Azad (left) and filmmaker Robin Joy use Action mode on iPhone 17 Pro Max to keep the frame stable.

The shooting required a lot of action sequences, and Roy made good use of Action Mode in the high-resolution video recording capability of the iPhone 17 Pro Max. And he also used the M5 MacBook Pro for editing.

“I’d been wanting to make this film for a few years, but it felt too ambitious. But iPhone 17 Pro Max changed the way we’re approaching it. I can just lock and go. The vapour chamber in iPhone 17 Pro Max kept the device running smoothly throughout the course of the gruelling 9-to-5 shooting schedule. Action mode kept the frame stable, even as the team was thrown about on a small boat in the middle of a lake. And MacBook Pro kept up with the crew through long days on set and even longer days in post-production, " said Roy.

Dhritisree Sarkar's Kathar Katha (The Tale of Katha)

Sarkar is Ph.D. scholar specialising in gender and development. Her short movie tells the story of a news anchor who has been diagnosed with a rare condition that progressively seals all of her external orifices.

Mentor Dibakar Banerjee (right) reviews footage of Kathar Katha (The Tale of Katha) with Dhritisree Sarkar on MacBook Pro.

For video shooting, she used the iPhone 17 Pro Max. In one of the scenes, Sarkar shot a close-range video 8x optical zoom at 200 mm on an iPhone of luchi, a Bengali bread, puffing up in Katha’s eyeball as an expression of her growing rage. It also managed to perfectly capture the character’s emotion.

During trials where prosthetics sealed the eyes and mouth of her actor, Sarkar’s team used the Blackmagic Camera app with Tentacle Sync to transform an iPad Pro into a monitor.

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