Shreela Agarwal uses internal stabilisation on iPhone 17 Pro Max while climbing rocks alongside her actors for her film 11.11.

If you had walked in late to PVR Lido, Mumbai where four short films (in Malayalam, Hindu, Marathi and Bengali) were showcased as part of MAMI (Mumbai Academy of Moving Images) Select, you might not have guessed that these films were all shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max. This year’s films featured an assortment of stories that took viewers to the streets of Mumbai that became the backdrop for a clandestine affair to a young misfit navigating Goa’s vibrant beaches and divinity and humanity in Kerala.

MAMI Select – four films shot on an iPhone 17 Pro Max

MAMI 2026 marks the third successive year of MAMI’s collaboration with Apple. One of last year’s shorts – Seeing Red (a Tamil film mentored by Vetrimaaran) has crossed one million views on YouTube. This year’s mentors included Sriram Raghavan, Chaitanya Tamhane, Dibakar Banerjee, and Geetu Mohandas — winners of accolades from India’s National Film Awards, the Asian Film Awards, the Venice International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival, to name a few. To make their shorts, filmmakers Shreela Agarwal, Ritesh Sharma, Robin Joy, and Dhritisree Sarkar tapped into the pro camera system, cinema-grade video capabilities, and advanced features of iPhone 17 Pro Max, as well as MacBook Pro with M5 and iPad Pro with M5 for additional support.

Paradise Fall

Robin Joy was influenced by the films of Werner Herzog and Giuseppe Tornatore that made him realise that it’s okay to be a little weird in telling stories. The Film and Television Institute of India graduate, who served as associate director and dialogue writer on All We Imagine as Light, which was awarded the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Joy’s MAMI Select: Filmed on iPhone short, Pathanam (Paradise Fall), tells the story of an angel who collapses in the backyard of an atheist — and the socio-political chaos that ensues. He told me that shooting on an iPhone 17 Pro Max allowed him the option of shooting in Pro-Res 4K RAW. It helped him in the post-production stage with a higher dynamic range.

Robin believes the unique land and waterscapes of Vypin, Kochi enabled him to create a magical realism that was boosted by the iPhone’s camera creds. One of the highlight shots of the film is a moon reflection complemented by night shots that add to the film’s visual appeal. The iPhone’s Action Mode came to the fore when the team was thrown about on a small boat in the middle of a lake. Robin added that the advantage with a smaller camera like a phone is that you can move closer without intimidating the subject as much as a cinema camera.

“Cinema is built on emotions and what we want to communicate, the medium is not important. When first started off, I shot a short film on a super 16 and blew it up to 35. I wanted that flavour. The digital medium exploded after that. There’s also a voyeuristic element especially where you want to shoot at certain locations without disturbing the ambience or the people” – Geetu Mohandas who served as Robin’s mentor wasn’t sure what was expected of her as a mentor. She reminisced about her initial years as a film maker when she preferred working alone rather than assist someone. It’s why she tried not to step on Robin’s shoes and blur his cinematic vision.

A practical shooting option

A graduate of Singapore’s Lasalle College of the Arts, Shreela Agarwal put cinema aside to chase her dream of becoming a boxer after a career-ending injury. Fittingly, her first film was a boxing documentary titled BMCLD. Her newest film, 11.11 — “a love letter to Mumbai after dark” — tells the story of two women on a first date. In the script, her protagonists walk and dance under city streetlights and on dim beaches, presenting challenging lighting conditions. “We tested iPhone 17 Pro Max in a very unique way,” says Agarwal. ProRes RAW data capture allowed her team to push the ISO in post-production. According to her, the benefits of filming on iPhone for aspiring filmmakers aren’t just aesthetic — they’re also practical.

Shift focus

Ritesh Sharma credits his origins as a street theatre performer for paving the way for his pivot to filmmaking: Filmed on iPhone entry, She Sells Seashells, follows Maruti, a 17-year-old Rajasthani migrant who sells trinkets on the beach, and her dream of stepping inside an upmarket seaside restaurant in Goa — a seemingly trivial act that becomes a study in dignity in the director’s capable hands. iPhone 17 Pro Max allowed Sharma to draw the audience deeper into his protagonist’s mental state. “There are dreamlike sequences where we see Maruti’s internal world,” he explains. “Cinematic mode allows us to shift focus between her reality and what she is feeling. “During preproduction, I’d record whatever I was hearing with the native mics on iPhone, transfer the file, and edit it right away on MacBook Pro.”

Zooming in

Shot on iPhone 7 during the height of the COVID pandemic, Dhritisree Sarkar’s first short film, Chhaddonam (Pen Name), went on to be acquired by MUBI. “Accessibility is important for a beginner,” she said. “You can just pick up your phone and shoot whatever story you want to tell.” Her new film, Kathar Katha (The Tale of Katha), tells the story of a news anchor who has been diagnosed with a rare condition that progressively seals all of her external orifices — a premise that emerged from a personal moment. She pushes in close with iPhone to capture the reflection of a luchi, a Bengali bread, puffing up in Katha’s eyeball as an expression of her growing rage. The 8x optical zoom at 200 mm on iPhone 17 Pro Max was also pivotal to depicting the character’s emotion

At a time when most content creators rarely think beyond 60 seconds for their Instagram reels, these films are evidence that new tools and smartphones are changing not just the way films are made but which stories get told. As award-winning director Sriram Raghavan puts it, “Filmmaking today is about vision, and iPhone makes it possible for anyone with a strong voice to create something meaningful”.

You can watch the four short films on MAMI’s YouTube channel.

Published on May 13, 2026