Mumbai, the undisputed capital of Indian cinema, is celebrating its status as India’s only UNESCO Creative City of Film with a series of special events launched on Sunday, 25 May 2026. The centrepiece of the celebrations is an exhibition at the National Gallery of Modern Art in South Mumbai featuring an extensive collection of vintage and contemporary Hindi and Marathi film posters, accompanied by panel discussions, masterclasses and industry networking events that highlight the city’s profound and enduring relationship with the art of filmmaking.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network, established in 2004, recognises cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development. Mumbai was inducted into the network under the City of Film designation, joining an exclusive group that includes global cinema capitals such as Rome, Sydney, Busan, Łódź and Bristol. The recognition acknowledges Mumbai’s extraordinary concentration of film production infrastructure, its vast pool of creative talent and the central role that cinema plays in the city’s economic and cultural life.

The NGMA Exhibition — A Visual History of Indian Cinema

The exhibition at the NGMA is curated around the theme “City of Dreams, City of Film” and traces the evolution of Mumbai’s film industry from the silent era of the early 1900s to the contemporary digital age. Over 200 original film posters, many sourced from private collectors and the archives of major production houses, are displayed across three galleries, offering visitors a vivid visual timeline of how Indian cinema has evolved aesthetically, thematically and technologically over more than a century.

The first gallery focuses on the founding decades of Indian cinema, featuring posters from Raja Harishchandra (1913), the first full-length Indian feature film, directed by Dadasaheb Phalke in what was then Bombay. The gallery traces the development of the studio system in the 1930s and 1940s, with posters from iconic studios like Bombay Talkies, Prabhat Film Company and V. Shantaram’s Rajkamal Kalamandir that shaped the visual grammar of Indian cinema.

The second gallery covers the golden age of Hindi cinema from the 1950s through the 1970s, arguably the most creatively fertile period in Bollywood history. Posters from landmark films including Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam, Guide, Sholay and Deewaar are displayed alongside lesser-known but critically acclaimed Marathi films that were being produced simultaneously in the same city. This juxtaposition highlights a key curatorial decision to present Mumbai’s film heritage as a dual tradition encompassing both Hindi and Marathi cinema, rather than focusing exclusively on Bollywood.

The third gallery brings the timeline to the present day, featuring posters and production materials from contemporary Indian films that have garnered international recognition. Works by directors such as Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and Marathi filmmakers like Nagraj Manjule and Chaitanya Tamhane are represented, demonstrating the continuity between Mumbai’s cinematic heritage and its living creative present.

Panel Discussions and Masterclasses

Alongside the exhibition, the celebrations include a programme of panel discussions featuring prominent figures from the Indian film industry. Sunday’s inaugural panel, titled “The Future of Film in a Streaming World,” brought together producers, directors and platform executives to discuss how the rise of over-the-top streaming services has transformed the economics and creative ambitions of Indian filmmaking.

Upcoming sessions this week will cover topics including the role of artificial intelligence in film production, the preservation of India’s vast but deteriorating film heritage, the economics of regional cinema in the streaming era, and the potential for Mumbai to serve as a hub for international co-productions. These discussions reflect the city’s ambition to leverage its UNESCO designation not merely as an honorary title but as a catalyst for practical policy initiatives and industry development.

Film education is also a focus of the celebrations, with masterclasses scheduled for emerging filmmakers and students from Mumbai’s numerous film schools. These sessions, led by established professionals in cinematography, sound design, visual effects and scriptwriting, aim to bridge the gap between academic training and industry practice, one of the persistent challenges facing India’s film education ecosystem.

Mumbai’s Film Industry by the Numbers

The scale of Mumbai’s film industry is staggering by any measure. The city is home to over 1,000 production companies, 150 post-production facilities and dozens of recording studios, dubbing theatres and screening rooms. An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 films are produced in Mumbai annually across Hindi, Marathi and other languages, making it one of the most prolific film production centres in the world by volume.

The economic impact is equally significant. The film industry directly employs an estimated 300,000 people in Mumbai and supports an additional 500,000 jobs indirectly through related sectors including hospitality, transportation, catering, construction and technology. The industry’s contribution to Maharashtra’s GDP is estimated at over Rs 20,000 crore annually, a figure that is growing as streaming platforms invest heavily in original content produced in Mumbai.

The city’s infrastructure advantage is formidable. Film City, the sprawling studio complex in Goregaon, provides approximately 520 acres of purpose-built filming facilities. Major studios including Yash Raj Films, Dharma Productions and T-Series maintain their headquarters and production facilities in Mumbai, and the city’s diverse architectural and geographical landscape offers filmmakers an extraordinary range of locations within a single metropolitan area.

What the UNESCO Designation Means Going Forward

Being part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network opens specific opportunities for Mumbai’s film community. The designation facilitates collaboration with other network cities, potentially enabling co-production agreements, talent exchanges and joint festival programming that can elevate Mumbai’s profile on the global cinema stage. It also provides a framework for policy advocacy, giving the city’s film industry a recognised international platform from which to engage with government authorities on issues such as taxation, censorship, infrastructure investment and heritage preservation.

The celebrations this week are intended to serve as a launchpad for more sustained engagement with the UNESCO framework. City officials have indicated that they plan to establish a permanent Film Heritage Centre in Mumbai, drawing on the UNESCO designation to attract both public funding and private sponsorship. The centre would serve as a museum, archive, screening venue and educational facility, creating a permanent home for the kind of cultural programming that is currently being showcased at the NGMA exhibition.

For a city that has defined itself through cinema for over a century, the UNESCO recognition is both a validation of past achievement and an invitation to imagine new possibilities. As the commercial success of Indian cinema continues to grow and the boundaries between regional and global filmmaking continue to blur, Mumbai’s Creative City of Film status positions it to play an even more central role in the global entertainment landscape.

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One of Mumbai’s largest anti-encroachment operations in recent years has turned violent as Western Railway’s demolition drive at Garib Nagar, a sprawling slum settlement in Bandra East, entered its third day on 21 May 2026. The operation, backed by Bombay High Court orders, has seen bulldozers raze over 400 unauthorised structures along a 500-metre stretch of railway land near Bandra station, displacing hundreds of families just days before Eid and weeks ahead of the monsoon season.

On 20 May, violent clashes erupted when residents pelted stones at officials and police personnel carrying out the demolition. Police responded with a lathi charge to disperse the crowd, and several arrests were made. Emotional scenes unfolded throughout the day as families scrambled to salvage belongings while heavy machinery flattened their homes, leaving people sitting in the open with bags, mattresses, utensils, and pets amid the rubble.

Why the Demolition Is Happening Now

The demolition drive is part of a critical infrastructure expansion project that has been pending for years. Western Railway plans to expand the fifth and sixth railway lines on the Santacruz-Mumbai Central corridor, a long-delayed project aimed at easing severe congestion on Mumbai’s overcrowded suburban local train network. The expansion is expected to enable 50 new originating trains from Mumbai, dramatically improving commuter capacity on one of the busiest urban rail systems in the world.

Equally important, the cleared land will improve access to the upcoming Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train station at Bandra-Kurla Complex, the financial hub that is being transformed into a multi-modal transport node. The bullet train project, India’s first high-speed rail corridor, requires unobstructed connectivity between Bandra station and the BKC terminal, and the encroachments along the railway corridor have been a persistent obstacle.

The Bombay High Court had previously ordered the removal of illegal encroachments on railway property while directing authorities to protect the rights of eligible residents identified through baseline surveys. According to railway officials and court records, only about 100 inhabitants identified as eligible in surveys conducted on 10 and 11 August 2021 qualify for rehabilitation and alternative accommodation.

Residents Allege Inadequate Rehabilitation

Many residents have challenged the characterisation of their homes as illegal encroachments, claiming they have lived in Garib Nagar for decades and were either excluded from or unaware of the 2021 rehabilitation surveys. Community leaders say that the settlement has existed since the 1970s and that multiple generations of families have built their lives around the area, with many working as domestic helpers, construction labourers, and street vendors in the affluent Bandra neighbourhood.

The timing of the demolition has added to the anguish. With Eid-ul-Adha approaching in late May, many families had been preparing for the festival, and the sudden escalation of the drive has left celebrations in disarray. Residents have also expressed fear about the approaching monsoon, noting that families left without shelter face dangerous exposure to heavy rains that typically begin in June.

Social activists and opposition politicians have criticised the operation’s execution, arguing that even court-ordered demolitions should be carried out with adequate notice, humane treatment, and robust rehabilitation measures. Several have demanded an independent audit of the survey data to ensure that all eligible families receive proper alternative accommodation before their homes are demolished.

Western Railway’s Defence and the Bigger Picture

Western Railway has defended the operation as essential for Mumbai’s transport future. Railway officials point out that the encroachments sit on government-owned railway land and have been built without any legal authorisation. The structures, many of them two and three-storey buildings with commercial establishments on the ground floor, have progressively encroached on land required for critical infrastructure projects.

The Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor is one of India’s most ambitious infrastructure projects, and delays caused by land acquisition and encroachment clearance have been cited as major factors in the project’s extended timeline. The Western Railway has argued that the current drive, while painful for affected residents, is necessary to prevent further delays to projects that will benefit millions of Mumbai commuters.

This drive follows a similar massive anti-encroachment operation at Howrah Railway Station in West Bengal earlier in May, where authorities demolished illegal structures as part of a nationwide push to reclaim railway land for infrastructure modernisation.

Legal and Humanitarian Dimensions

The Garib Nagar demolition raises complex questions about urban development, social justice, and the rights of informal settlers that are relevant far beyond Mumbai. India’s rapid urbanisation has created vast slum settlements in every major city, often on government or railway land, where families live for decades without formal legal title. Court-ordered clearances inevitably pit development imperatives against the welfare of vulnerable communities.

Legal experts note that the Supreme Court of India has established principles requiring adequate notice and rehabilitation before large-scale evictions, but the implementation of these principles varies widely across states and agencies. The Garib Nagar case is likely to generate legal challenges that could reach the higher courts, particularly if residents can demonstrate that the 2021 survey was insufficiently comprehensive.

What Comes Next for Bandra East

The demolition drive is expected to continue for at least one more day, with railway authorities aiming to clear the remaining structures by the end of the week. Police presence has been significantly increased following the stone-pelting incident, and the area has been placed under heightened security.

Once cleared, the land will be handed over to construction teams working on the fifth and sixth line expansion project. Railway officials estimate that the cleared corridor will also provide a direct access road to the BKC bullet train terminal, reducing travel time between Bandra station and the high-speed rail hub. For the displaced families, the path forward remains uncertain, with only a fraction qualifying for formal rehabilitation while the majority face the daunting prospect of finding new shelter in one of the world’s most expensive real estate markets.

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