Runner Up at MIFF 2026.
Mumbai has always been a city of a thousand stories. On the night of 20th June 2026, one of those stories walked away with the Runner Up prize at India’s most significant AI filmmaking challenge.
The Mumbai Lens — a short AI film about an old Parsi optician in Bombay who sees everyone’s Mumbai through his testing lenses, but never his own — won the Runner Up Award and ₹1 Lakh prize at the CinemAI Hackathon, co-organised by NFDC and LTM BlueVerse CraftStudio at the 19th Mumbai International Film Festival 2026.
48-Hour AI Filmmaking Challenge · Theme: Mumbai Through a Thousand Eyes
180+ participants · Top 10 shortlisted · Public screening on 20th June 2026
Prize: ₹1 Lakh & Certificate of Excellence
Dr. Rustom Dastur runs a small, old optician’s clinic somewhere in Bombay. He has spent his life fitting lenses to other people’s eyes — adjusting, correcting, bringing the world into focus for everyone who walks through his door. But through those lenses, he sees something the patients never realise they are showing him: their Mumbai.
A delivery rider whose eyes hold rain on a flyover and a cold untouched dinner plate. A corporate woman whose pupils reflect glass towers and a sea trapped behind a window. An aspiring actor who sees an empty audition room and his own face becoming many faces. A Koli fisherwoman whose eyes carry nets drying by the sea and high-rises growing behind it. An old taxi driver whose fingers still remember a steering wheel.
One by one, through the same antique testing frame, Dr. Dastur sees a thousand Mumbais. Until, at the end of the day, he sits in the chair himself — and finally looks.
The Mumbai Lens · Runner Up, CinemAI Hackathon · 19th MIFF 2026 · OpenFrame AI Lab
“बॉम्बे में आँख कमज़ोर नहीं होती। बस हर किसी की नज़र अपनी-अपनी हो जाती है।”
In Bombay, eyes don’t get weak. They just each start seeing their own version of the city.
The film moves through five patients — each carrying a different Mumbai behind their eyes — before the doctor himself finally becomes the subject.
For the first time in its history, MIFF hosted the CinemAI Hackathon — a 48-hour AI filmmaking challenge co-organised by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and LTM BlueVerse CraftStudio. Over 180 filmmakers, storytellers and content creators registered from across India.
The theme: “Mumbai Through a Thousand Eyes.” Participants created original AI-assisted short films of 90 to 120 seconds interpreting the city through perspectives shaped by memory, imagination and lived experience. The top 10 films were shortlisted by jury on June 18 and screened publicly at MIFF on June 20.
FTII alumnus with over 35 years of experience as a director, writer, producer, and educator. His work spans television drama, socially conscious cinema, and documentary filmmaking. A pioneer in AI-enabled filmmaking methodologies and the founding creative force behind OpenFrame AI Lab.
Cinematographer, colorist, and AI film director with over 25 years of experience. Trained under the late Shri Dharam Chopra at B.R. Films, Mumbai. Canon India Official Mentor and FTII Course Director. Building AI-integrated cinematic methodologies combining traditional film grammar with generative visual systems. Based in Jammu, J&K.
The Mumbai Lens was not the only OpenFrame AI Lab film at MIFF 2026. Three films, three categories, one festival edition — a distinction we believe is exceptional for any studio at a single MIFF.
पर वक़्त पड़े… सब एक-दूसरे को देख लेते हैं।” In Bombay, every eye sees its own city.
But when it matters… they all see each other. — The Mumbai Lens · MIFF 2026