Evoking mixed reactions from the viewers, Mumbai Cutting sees eleven of India’s most renowned and respected filmmakers coming together for a single film, comprising eleven different stories.

Director, Sudhir Mishra, said in an interview that the film captured the individual reactions of the directors to the city. Mishra’s story is The Ball with Soha Ali Khan shot under the JJ flyover, in the heart of Mumbai, picking up on the age-old theme of builder-tenant problems. But Mishra is someone who belongs to the city and understands its nuances. For Revathy – who directed the all-woman crew film Mitr, My Friend – it was a different experience. Her film The Parcel starring Sonali Kulkarni and Vinay Pathak deals with human trafficking. It follows the life of an immigrant woman who arrives in Mumbai on her way to the Middle East and her travails in the city which she admits, is like a jungle.

Rituparno Ghosh, a non-Mumbaikar, has in Urge, dealt with the power that this city has on people outside the city. In that sense, it is not based in Mumbai but shows everything that young people would do, just to get to this metropolis. On a different note, the last story in the series is Rahul Dholakia’s Bombay Mumbai Same Shit. It is a typical day in the life of the cash-rich flamboyant south Mumbaiites who put others who surround them through all kinds of travails.

Not to forget, the four slices of city life running parallel in real-time, with the common theme being about waiting in Shashanka Ghosh’s 10 Minutes; the effect a stranger’s demeanour can have on an individual in Jahnu Barua’s Anjane Dost; contrasted with two dejected, depressed, grieving individuals who have both lost their loved ones, in Manish Jha’s And lt Rained.

Ruchi Narain’s Jo Palti Nahi Woh Rickshaw Kya with Raima Sen and Deepak Bajwa seen through the eyes of a rickshaw-loving non-resident Indian and Mumbai High by Ayush Raina about the rush to get into the trolley irrespective of its fate are generally the weakest links among the stories.

Some of the films would be engrossing even if viewed in isolation. For example, Kundan Shah’s Hero which tells the story of an actor trying to board a local train, a film that is not about the actor, but about the train commuter who is the city’s unsung hero, and Anuraag Kashyap’s Pramod Bhai 23 describing the story of Chand, a juvenile delinquent who is obsessed with the underworld and Bollywood; are both gripping films that leave you wanting more.