Our Correspondent Imphal, June 3 (EMN): In a first, the 17th Mumbai International Film Festival for documentary, short fiction and animation films (MIFF-2022) opened with a Manipuri documentary film on Wednesday and paid homage to ace Manipuri cinematographer, Irom Maipak, who passed away during the COVID pandemic in 2021. Maipak is Manipur’s only national award winning cinematographer and the founding president of All Manipur Cinematographers Association. MIFF opened with ‘Meiram (fireline)’, a Manipuri documentary film by James Khangembam on May 29. Fifty four-year-old Maipak had won the National Film Award for best non-feature film cinematography in the non-feature section for the 2001 film ‘The Monpas of Arunachal Pradesh’ at the 49th National Film Awards held in 2002. He also won the Navroze Contractor Award for the best documentary cinematography in the 8th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala 2015 for the film Phum Shang meaning floating biomass