The Emerging Filmmakers Transforming Cultural And Creative Lines With iPhone 16 Pro Max -

The talent behind this year’s MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone projects delve into how India’s varied landscapes and cultures shaped their shorts.

According to India’s writer, director, and actor Konkona Sen Sharma, he believes that beyond technology, a filmmaker’s most important tool is courage.

“With iPhone, there’s so much power contained in such a compact package that you can bypass the conventions of mainstream filmmaking. All you need is a great idea, and the guts and determination to follow through with it”, says Sen Sharma, a two-time winner of India’s National Film Awards.

Alongside fellow Indian film industry icons Vikramaditya Motwane, Lijo Jose Pellissery, and Vetri Maaran, Sen Sharma is mentoring four emerging filmmakers selected by the Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) to create short films for the 2025 MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone program.

Now in its second year, the program empowers MAMI alumni to push the boundaries of technology and innovation, shooting their projects on iPhone 16 Pro Max and editing them on MacBook Pro with M4 Max. Two of last year’s participating films recently won 2025 Critics’ Choice Awards India for Best Short Film, Best Director (Short Film), and Best Writing (Short Film).

“Shooting on iPhone allows for complete personal expression,” says Maaran, writer-director of the upcoming Tamil action thriller Vaadivaasal. He believes he is learning as much from his mentees as he is teaching them.

“We’re living in the age of democracy in filmmaking.”

This year’s MAMI Select filmmakers — Amrita Bagchi, Rohin Raveendran Nair, Chanakya Vyas, and Shalini Vijayakumar — are discovering new cinematic worlds through the lens of iPhone 16 Pro Max.

“The unique voices of these filmmakers are beautifully contextualized through the four languages and regions of India in which they are rooted,” says MAMI festival director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.

“These are very passionate people with important stories to tell,” says Pellissery, the filmmaker behind Malayalam features like Ee.Ma.Yau. and Jallikattu. “Shooting on iPhone, they are pushing their own limits with fantastic results.”

Each filmmaker leveraged the powerful capabilities of MacBook Pro with the M4 Max chip to weave their stories together.

“Shooting and editing within the Apple family of products gives you a stellar advantage: speed,” says writer-director Motwane, whose work in film and television includes Udaan and Black Warrant.

That lightning-fast performance of MacBook Pro alongside the ease of use of iPhone 16 Pro Max is giving these artists even more creative control on and off set. Navigating childhood and change, legacy, and liberation, Bagchi, Nair, Vyas, and Vijayakumar recently premiered their stories in Mumbai.

Creating Claustrophobia with Cinematic Mode
With a background in design, acting, singing, and songwriting, Amrita Bagchi feels she was always destined to be a filmmaker.

“It’s like a confluence of all the art forms,” she says.

Bagchi, whose short film Succulent won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2022, hails from Kolkata, the city in West Bengal, India, that has produced cinematic stalwarts like Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. It’s also the home of many a spooky story.

Additionally, Amrita Bagchi believes her film could never have been shot with a traditional camera. “With iPhone 16 Pro Max, I can constantly create and improvise,” she says.

Her new short film, ‘Tinctoria’, is a psychological thriller inspired by an actual historical event: the indigo revolt that arose in Bengal in 1859. It tells the story of a modern-day fashion mogul whose ancestral legacy is built on the skeletons of indigo farmers from the colonial era — the ghosts of whom quite literally come back to haunt her.
To create the immersive, claustrophobic atmosphere of a thriller, Bagchi is engaging Cinematic mode for the film’s opening montage.

“We’re tracking bubbles and plastic sheets flying through the air, and the depth of field is so clean,” she says. “Just like it’s shot on a huge, high-budget cinematic camera.”

As per Filmmaker Bagchi, She can just shoot at 4K120 fps on her iPhone, and still have tremendous flexibility to change the pacing during the edit on her MacBook Pro.

“It was a very ambitious production, but with iPhone 16 Pro Max, I can constantly create and improvise,” she says. “That edginess of movement, it’s like visual rap.”

With graphically demanding workflows — like overlaying the industry-standard Rec. 709 color space on ProRes Log footage captured on iPhone — she is surprised that her M4 Max MacBook Pro hasn’t lagged once.

“It’s like a rocket machine,” she says. “On a tight schedule I can just shoot at 4K120 fps on my iPhone, and still have tremendous flexibility to change the pacing during the edit on my MacBook Pro.”

The filmmakers confessed that, the prospect of shooting on iPhone 16 Pro Max has been instrumental in their choice of narrative.

Vyas — whose short film Loo was nominated for Best Short Film (Narrative) at the New York Indian Film Festival — went down a rabbit hole after reading an article about an avian flu outbreak in suburban Mumbai. That, combined with the devastating loss of his golden retriever, inspired his new short film. Mangya is a coming-of-age tale about an 11-year-old boy and his pet, the titular rooster.

With Action mode, these filmmakers could even shoot multiple takes. Growing up in a traditional Tamil-speaking home in Chennai, filmmaker Shalini Vijayakumar loved hearing stories about her mother’s large family. “Some used to be funny, others were sad,” she says.

This year’s MAMI Select filmmakers — Amrita Bagchi, Rohin Raveendran Nair, Chanakya Vyas, and Shalini Vijayakumar — are discovering new cinematic worlds through the lens of iPhone 16 Pro Max.

The iPhone 16e, Apple Inc.’s Flagship Device, Is Now Available At A Lower Price

The unique voices of these filmmakers are beautifully contextualized through the four languages and regions of India in which they are rooted.

Bagchi, whose short film ‘Succulent’ won the Grand Jury Prize at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles in 2022, hails from Kolkata, the city in West Bengal, India, that has produced cinematic stalwarts like Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen. It’s also the home of many a spooky story.

Her new short film, Tinctoria, is a psychological thriller inspired by an actual historical event: the indigo revolt that arose in Bengal in 1859. It tells the story of a modern-day fashion mogul whose ancestral legacy is built on the skeletons of indigo farmers from the colonial era — the ghosts of whom quite literally come back to haunt her.

To create the immersive, claustrophobic atmosphere of a thriller, Bagchi is engaging Cinematic mode for the film’s opening montage. Bagchi believes her film could never have been shot through traditional means.

“It was a very ambitious production, but with iPhone 16 Pro Max, I can constantly create and improvise,” she says. “That edginess of movement, it’s like visual rap.”

For more tightly framed shots, the 120 mm lens on iPhone 16 Pro Max allows her to bring together her narrative, staging, and theme in a single shot that she composed using Procreate on iPad.

Source: Apple Inc.