'The Irishman,' 'Ad Astra,' 'The Report' Set for Mumbai Film Festival

The 21st edition of the festival will open with South Indian language title 'Moothon,' which had its world premiere at Toronto.

The 21st edition of the Mumbai Film Festival on Monday unveiled its lineup, offering a mix of international and Indian cinema.

The international non-competitive section features such top titles as James Gray's Brad Pitt starrer Ad Astra, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, which stars Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci, and Scott Z. Burns' The Report with Adam Driver.

The lineup also includes Pedro Almodovar's Antonio Banderas starrer Pain and Glory and Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You, which both bowed at Cannes, Alma Har'el's Honey Boy and Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir, which both premiered at Sundance, Fatih Akin's The Golden Glove, which premiered at Berlin, Ari Aster's Midsommar and Harmony Korine's The Beach Bum.

The festival will open with South Indian Malayalam language title Moothon (The Elder One), which had its world premiere at Toronto. Directed by Geetu Mohandas, the film revolves around a boy searching for his elder brother.

Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, who helmed 2002's multiple Oscar-nominated City of God, will be honored with an excellence in cinema award and conduct a master class. His latest film The Two Popes, starring Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce, bowed at Telluride and screened at Toronto and will stream worldwide on Netflix on Dec. 20.

Indian actress Deepti Naval, known for such classic titles as Chashme Buddoor and Dev Patel starrer Lion, will also be honored with an excellence in cinema award.

The international competition jury is headed by acclaimed filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, whose credits include Academy Award-nominated films Paradise Now and Omar. Fellow jurors include Indian director Zoya Akhtar whose film Gully Boy is India's Oscar entry this year, South Indian director Vetri Maaran whose credits include India's 2016 Oscar entry Visaranai, Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger and Edinburgh International Film Festival artistic director Mark Adams.

The India Gold jury is headed by Franklin Leonard, founder of online platform The Blacklist, known for its annual list of the best unproduced screenplays, Cannes director of film department, Christian Jeune, IMDb CEO Col Needham and Dublin International Film Festival director Grainne Humphreys.

While the lineup for the international competition section will be unveiled shortly, the India Gold section features 10 titles spanning the country's diverse languages and regions. The section includes India premieres for such titles as Gitanjali Rao's critically acclaimed animation feature Bombay Rose, which premiered at Venice followed by Toronto and Bhaskar Hazarika's Ravening (Aamis), which premiered at Tribeca.

Other films include Pushpendra Singh’s Pearl of the Desert (Maru ro Moti), Achal Mishra’s Gamak Ghar, Saurav Rai’s Invitation (Nimtoh), Kislay’s Just Liked That (Aise Hi), Prateek Vats' Eeb Allay Ooo!, Archana Atul Phadke’s Marathi documentary About Love, Gurvinder Singh's Bitter Chestnut (Khanaur) and Yashaswini Raghunandan's That Cloud Never Left.

The festival's non-competitive India Story section includes 13 titles that include Nitin Bhaskar's Kaajro, Nicholas Kharkongor's Axone, Fahim Irshad's Aani Maani, Sunit Sinha's Ranj (Slow Burn), Sapna Bhavnani's documentary Sindhustan, Vinod Kamble's Kastoori (The Musk) and Siddharth Tripathy's A Dog And His Man, among others.

Organized by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images and presented by telecom major Reliance Jio in association with Disney-owned Star India network, the Mumbai Film Festival runs Oct. 17-24.