Cannes and Indian cinema
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Festival de Cannes (The [Film] Festival of Cannes)
Cannes: The place
Cannes is a seaside town in south-east France. The stretch of the Mediterranean that it overlooks is called the French Riviera in English and the Côte d'Azur in French.
The festival at Cannes
Since 1946 the Festival international du film (International Film Festival) has been held in Cannes. In 2002 it was renamed Festival de Cannes (the Cannes Film Festival, in English).
By the mid-1950s this had become the world’s most prestigious film festival.
The Grand Prix (prize)
The official history of the Festival de Cannes admits that ‘the first few Festivals were primarily society events, in which almost every film that was screened picked up a prize.’
The Festival was conceived in 1938 and was about to have its first run in 1939 (which did not take place).At the time ‘(t)he emphasis was on the universal spirit of the event: each country would choose its own films to present in Competition, the jury would represent all the participants and all the nations in attendance would receive a Grand Prix, in the spirit of artistic objectivity and absolute impartiality.’ ([Festival de Cannes)
Accordingly, in 1946, when Cannes’ first festival was actually held, it ‘featured 19 countries…[and] every nation represented left with a Grand Prix.’ ([Festival de Cannes)
The achievement of Neecha Nagar has to be seen in this context.
In 1946, as many as eleven films were given a Grand Prix.However, on the Festival de Cannes Neecha Nagar has been listed at the top of this list, which is not in the alphabetical order. All film historians agree that the Grand Prix was the highest prize and the precursor of today’s Palme d’Or. All the same, a prize and a film have been listed above Neecha Nagar. This was the International Jury Prize, which was awarded to René Clément’s La Bataille Du Rail. (Festival de Cannes)
Neecha Nagar competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category(i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’), in which there were 44 films in 1946. (The number of films making it to this elite group was reduced to 21 by 2018.)
What is a film festival?
Film festivalsscreenone or two hundred filmsevery year, and they witness festivities,normally after sunset, but sometimes over lunch as well. Nerds (like this writer) go there for the films.Glamorous people go for the festivities.
Seriously, filmmakers who want their films to be screened in other countries try their best to get their latest (i.e. released after last year’s edition of that film festival) films screened at prestigious international film festivals. In turn, film distributors and buyers go to these festivals looking for the best films to purchase for their national markets.
Awards—and even the mere inclusion of a film in the ‘official selection’—make the task of these film distributors and buyers easier, by helping them decide which films to buy. Awards and official selections also help filmmakers sell their films to a larger number of buyers from a greater number of countries.
The selection of films
Thousands of films are sent to Cannes (and other major festivals) every year. Obviously it is neither possible nor even desirable (for reasons of quality) to screen them all, at Cannes or at other festivals.
The International Film Festival of India, 2018, for instance, screened 212 films from 68 countries, not counting 50-odd films in the Indian Panorama.
In the case of Cannes, a selection committee watches every single film sent.
In 1939, the founding fathers of the Cannes festival decided, ‘The emphasis was on the universal spirit of the event: each country would choose its own films to present in Competition ([Festival de Cannes)…’
This was the principle followed at the first film festival held at Cannes in 1946—and thereafter.
In 1946 (and during some subsequent years as well) the expression ‘Selection’ was confined to just two categories: ‘Competition’ (i.e. feature films) and ‘Short Films.’
The ‘Juries’ (‘the Jury,’ actually) were restricted to ‘Feature Films’
Over the years sub-categories were added, and some full-fledged categories as well,
By 2018, the expression Selection included ‘Competition,’ ‘Un Certain Regard,’ ‘Out Of Competition,’ ‘Special Screenings,’ ‘Cinéfondation,’ ‘Short Films,’ ‘Cannes Classics’ and ‘Cinéma De La Plage,’
In 2018, ‘Cannes Classics’ had five sub-categories: ‘Restored Prints’ and four Tributes unique to the 2018 edition, viz., ‘Alice Guy And Jane Fonda,’ ‘2001: A Space Odyssey Turning 50,’ ‘Orson Welles’ and ‘Ingmar Bergman’s Centenary.’ ‘ There were separate ‘Juries’ for ‘Feature Films,’ ‘Cinefondation And Short Films’ (one jury for two categories), ‘Un Certain Regard’ and ‘Caméra D'or’—and as many sets of awards.
The number of films chosen
In 1946, 44 feature films and 68 short films were selected for the final competition.
In 2018 the number of films chosen by Cannes’ selection committee, category-wise, was
Competition(i.e. feature films) 21 films
Un Certain Regard 18 films
Out Of Competition 8 films
Special Screenings 8 films
Cinéfondation 17 films
Short Films 8 films
Cannes Classics 19 films
Cinéma de la Plage 12 films
What is the ‘Official Selection’?
The Official Selection ‘includes Out of Competition films, Special Screenings and Midnight Screenings, the historically important films featured in Cannes Classics and the Cinéfondation selection of films submitted from film schools. The important thing is that this Selection is both balanced and representative of the love of cinema at the time in terms of creativity and geography. (Emphasis added) (Festival de Cannes)
‘The Out of Competition films are often films that have a big impact on the cinematic calendar, and the Special Screenings and Midnight Screenings represent a special opportunity to view more personal works. Restored copies of films that are important in the history of cinema are brought back to life for Cannes Classics, which also offers tributes and documentaries focusing on cinema.’ (Festival de Cannes)
In Competition
‘Films that are representative of "arthouse cinema with a wide audience appeal" are presented in Competition.’ (Festival de Cannes) (In 2017 there were nineteen films in this section, 21 in 2018 and 23 in 1994.)
The twenty-odd films that compete in this category are considered the world’s best films (or, at least, the world’s best ‘art’ films) of that year. Thus, this is the most prestigious category of films in the world.
Till 1986 Indian films used to chosen regularly to compete in this category. Then, in 1994, one Indian film made the top twenty three. But after that no Indian film made the grade.
Though meant for narrative (i.e. ‘feature’) films, sometimes feature- length documentaries join this competition, perhaps because there is no separate category for them (e.g. Gotoma the Buddha [1957] and Fahrenheit 9/11 [2004], both of which won high prizes).
Un Certain Regard
‘Un Certain Regard focuses on works that have an original aim and aesthetic, and are guaranteed to make a discreet but strong impact on screens around the world.’ (Festival de Cannes) The Un Certain Regard section was started in 1978. Twenty years later, in 1998, the Prix Un Certain Regard was awarded for the first time. In 2013 the festival authorities added a few awards to this section.
The name literally means ‘in some perspective’ or ‘from a certain perspective.’ Thus, films in this category are those that try to look at things "from another perspective (point of view)"
These could be debut films, films from countries that produce very few films or films by well-known directors who are experimenting with storytellingtechniques or progressive themes that have not yet struck root in conventional cinema.
Around twenty "original and different" feature films are screened in this section every year. (In 2017 there were eighteen films and eighteen in 2018 as well.)
Out of Competition
Films that are considered outstanding but do not qualify under the Competition criteria are screened in this section. In 2018 there were eight such films, and the number generally varies between five and ten.
Typically these are the latest (preferably, never- screened- before) films of very famous directors—mega-budget Hollywood directors, as well as much-awaited arthouse films.
Séances Spéciales (Special Screenings)
These are films that are neither ‘In Competition’ nor ‘Out of Competition’ but are ‘more personal works,’ including both feature- and long documentary-films, by trendy directors and those whose previous works have been celebrated at Cannes.
In 2018, the eight films in this category included 10 Years Thailand (Aditya Assarat, Apichatpong Weerasethakul), Pope Francis – A Man Of His Word (Wim Wenders) and The State Against Mandela And The Others (Nicolas Champeaux, Gilles Porte).
Midnight Screenings
Midnight screeningsare an honour given to ‘cult’ films and ‘cult’ directors.
In 2012, Bollywood-The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (by Jeff Zimbalist and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra) had a midnight screening.
Short films
‘At Cannes, short films feature a) in the Competition, at the end of which the Short Films Jury awards a Palme d’or, and b) in the Short Film Corner, a professional area dedicated to meeting people, exchanging ideas and promoting films.
‘In 2010, the Festival created "Cannes Court Métrage" to bring these two entities together in a complementary dynamic in an attempt to offer an all-encompassing panorama of short film production worldwide, as well as to stimulate the creativity of short film artists.’ (Festival de Cannes)
Short films cannot exceed a playing time of 15 minutes. There normally are seven to ten filmsin the Competition. In 2018 there were eight.
Cannes Classics
Restored [and even new] prints of film classics—and, sometimes, rediscovered footage from decades ago, are the backbone of this section.
In 2018 there were nineteen films in the ‘Restored prints’ sub-section.
Ray’s Pather Panchali, Khandahar by Mrinal Sen,Vijay Anand’s Guide and Jago Hua Savera by Aaejay Kardar (Pakistan)have been screened in this section.
In addition, in 2018 there were four ‘tributes’: three to famous artistes and one to a famous film, with two, one, one and three films in these sub-sections.
Hence, in all Cannes Classics screened 26 films in 2018.
In 2002, the tribute to Raj Kapoor consisted of three of his films.
Cinéma de la Plage
These films, screened at night, everynight, on the Macé Beach of the Croisette, under the stars,are open to the public.In 2019 there the festival authorities organiseda big party on the opening day of this section, and another on its closing day. Both were open to the general public, which was encouraged to sing hits from the films, accompanied by a karaoke on a giant screen.
The nine films in this section in 2019 included the 1959 cult classic 400 Blows and Ang Lee’s 2000 hit Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
In 2013, the festive mood on the beach had been ignited by Bollywood-The Greatest Love Story Ever Told (by Jeff Zimbalist and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra).
Cinéfondation
This is a section meant only for feature (fiction, including animation) films, sixty minutes long or less, made by those currently studying in a film school.
‘The Cinéfondation presents film school works and organises the Residence and the Workshop. The development of ‘Cannes Short Films’ is another step in this direction.’ (Festival de Cannes)
Between fifteen and twenty films arenormally selected for thiscompetitionbetween film students. In 2018 there were seventeen.
Notes
Award.Ex Aequo means that the prize was divided or shared equally (‘in equity and conscience’) with someone else.
The ‘Directors' Fortnight,’ ‘Audience awards’ and ‘Critics’ Week’ are not listed on the official website of the Festival de Cannes.
To verify claims made about the Directors’ Fortnight, Indpaedia has consulted the website Quinzaine Realisateurs.
The expression ‘official selection’ at Cannes has been used loosely by well-meaning journalists to include Un Certain Regard and other categories as well. [1]
The Cinefondation has a competition for film schools across the world.
Notes new, n ot yet edited
black-tie screenings
he Camera d'Or is awarded by a separate jury to the best first-time film in the entire festival, including all sections of the Official Selection, the Directors' Fortnight and International Critics' Week. By Cannes standards, a "first-time film" is at least an hour long and its director has never before made a movie of that length for the cinema or TV.
Festival de Cannes "In Competition", "Out of Competition", "Official Selection", "Critics' Week", "Directors' Fortnight", "the Market"... having been the first film festival to develop side-bar events, a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking Cannes now appears to be a bit of a confusing mess. In reality, there are actually five organisations overseeing eleven major sections that comprise what is commonly referred to as the "Cannes Film Festival".
Read more at https://www.cannesguide.com/cannes-festival-guide/structure-of-the-cannes-film-festival/#ChIxuskILUvBQyij.99
the festival’s parallel sections—Critics’ Week and Directors’ Fortnight (Khan | Financial Express) The Un Certain Regard is a parallel section of the Cannes Festival that has seen several Indian movies being screened
The ‘parallel,’ unofficial sections
Semaine Internationale de la Critique (SIC) Founded in 1962 by the Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma (French Film Critics Association), the Semaine Internationale de la Critique (International Critics' Week) was the world's first film festival sidebar. The event takes place in Cannes at the same time as the Festival de Cannes, but is run independently (although these days there is a lot of coordination between the respective organisations). The principal aim of the Critics' Week is to bring work from first and second time directors to a wider audience. The official selection is far smaller than that of the Festival de Cannes, with around 10 feature films in its competition, and a similar number of shorts. The Critics' Week also hosts a small number of special screenings alongside the competitive sections. Participating films are chosen by an international panel of critics and sponsors. The Critics' Week has a long history of launching talented filmmakers on to the international stage. Notable alumni include, Bernardo Bertolucci, Barbet Schroeder, Ken Loach, Neil Jordan, John Sayles, and Kevin Smith, amongst others. In Cannes, the Critics' Week runs all screenings and other activities from its base at the Miramar on Rue Pasteur. Quinzaine des Réalisateurs The Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) is the second sidebar to spring up alongside the Festival de Cannes. Following the strife and eventual cancellation of the main festival in 1968, a group of French filmmakers resolved to create a new forum in which films could be presented free of politics, censorship, and elitism. 'The Quinzaine' was inaugurated in 1969 with a bumper programme of 62 features and 26 shorts. Although the programme has subsequently been slimmed down over the decades, the sidebar enjoys a slightly higher profile in Cannes than the Critics' Week due to the larger programme and current focus on films which have an interesting directorial voice. It's also the only Cannes programme which goes on tour after the main event, taking an abridged selection to a number of other cities in France and Europe. Like its older sidebar sibling, the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs is run independently of the Festival de Cannes, but all three organisations now work closely together to ensure a smooth festival experience for all. During the main festival, the Quinzaine is based in a townhouse on the Croisette called La Malmaison, located next to the JW Marriott. ACID Cannes The youngest of the sidebars, ACID Cannes was launched in 1993 by the Independent Film Distributors Association in France to showcase a small selection of films from around the world which embody independent spirit and are yet to secure distribution. Each year, the ACID selection screens around nine films and is one of the few Cannes programmes to include feature documentaries. ACID gets its mildly awkward moniker from the acronym for the rather cumbersome French name of its parent organisation – the Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion. The sidebar is also run independently from the Festival de Cannes, and for a long time did not enjoy the same cosy relationship as the other two sidebars. More recently, ACID has been given enhanced status by the Festival de Cannes, so has taken its place as the third 'approved' sidebar event in Cannes. ACID shares space in La Malmaison with the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, and after the main event in May, ACID goes on tour in several cities across France. Marché du Film Literally translating to "Film Market", but referred to by most as simply, "The Market", the Marché du Film is by far the largest event of its type in the world. Effectively a giant tradeshow, the Market has been an official part of Cannes since the early 1960s. This is where the film industry gets together to meet and do business, primarily the buying and selling of films. Although the market is run by a semi-autonomous division of the Festival de Cannes (and takes place at the same time), the event is not prestigious in any way. It is simply a business event open to anyone in the film industry who is looking to buy or has something to sell. In addition to traditional participation as either a buyer or seller, the Market now offers two specialist registration tracks for producers. The first, the Producers' Network, was launched in the late-2000s and provides a special programme of events and workshops for newer (but not first-time) producers to make international contacts, broaden their skillset, and get business done in Cannes. The second track is known as the Producers' Workshop. Started in 2012, this programme provides a series of workshops at the outset of the Market to help new and first-time producers understand the international marketplace and make the most of their time at the Marché du Film. Beyond the registration programmes for producers, the Market now has its own little posse of sidebars. Short Film Corner A dedicated market for short narrative and documentary films, which includes a series of events and workshops for short film makers. NEXT Following the lead set by other major festivals like Sundance and SXSW, in 2014 Cannes added a programme to showcase cutting edge distribution technology and new forms of storytelling. In recent years this has meant a heavy focus on virtual reality, but the programme strives to take a more holistic view of emerging technologies, techniques, and business models. NEXT has a dedicated space in the Village International Pantiero, with events, demos, and free screenings. Doc Corner The focus in Cannes is directed firmly on the narrative end of the filmmaking spectrum, but documentary-makers are by nature, a plucky bunch. As a result, the Market has a small dedicated area for those interested in buying and selling factual films to go about their business, and to give the documentary film community a chance to network with their peers. Frontières Platform A joint venture between the Marché du Film and the Fantasia International Film Festival, the Frontières Platform provides a dedicated section of industry programming and networking events aimed at genre filmmakers. There's a series of invitation-only forums and mixers, plus a buyer’s showcase where participating genre projects (completed or in post) can be put in front of industry players.
Read more at https://www.cannesguide.com/cannes-festival-guide/structure-of-the-cannes-film-festival/part2.php#7yvAgsVJ4YwSgpUw.99
Notes old ilms that are screened Out of Competition are generally those that the Cannes selection committee really wants to recognize but don't quite fit the Competition criteria.
Un Certain Regard is often used to display first-time films, experimental techniques, and progressive trends showing up in the work of established directors but not yet recognized in mainstream cinema. The Cinefondation category, established in 1998, is exclusively for film students currently enrolled in film school. These movies can only be fiction, either live action or animation, they can't be longer than one hour, and anything produced in the 18 months preceding the festival is fair game. Like the other sections of the Official Selection, a film can only qualify for Cinefondation if it has not been presented on an international scale.
Palme d'Or, which is awarded to the best feature film and the best short film in Competition.
he Camera d'Or is awarded by a separate jury to the best first-time film in the entire festival, including all sections of the Official Selection, the Directors' Fortnight and International Critics' Week. By Cannes standards, a "first-time film" is at least an hour long and its director has never before made a movie of that length for the cinema or TV.
Festival de Cannes "In Competition", "Out of Competition", "Official Selection", "Critics' Week", "Directors' Fortnight", "the Market"... having been the first film festival to develop side-bar events, a casual observer could be forgiven for thinking Cannes now appears to be a bit of a confusing mess. In reality, there are actually five organisations overseeing eleven major sections that comprise what is commonly referred to as the "Cannes Film Festival". Compétition (Competition) The competition is generally only open to narrative films, however occasionally the Festival slips in a documentary (such as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" which won the top prize in 2004).
Courts Métrages (Short Films)
The short film competition runs in parallel to its bigger brother, presenting a selection of narrative shorts (under 15 minutes) from around the world. Films in this programme vie for the Palme d'Or Court Métrage (Golden Palm for Short Films) and may also be bestowed with a special jury prize to recognise outstanding work. The Courts Métrages programme normally includes seven to ten films.
Hors Compétition (Out of Competition)
Cannes was one of the first festivals to realise that there was value in inviting high-profile films to premiere at the event, even if they didn't necessarily qualify for a competition berth. More red carpets mean more celebrities to pose for photo calls. In turn, this works to enhance the festival's image in the eyes of the press and the cinema-going public, without compromising the artistic integrity of the competition. As a result, each year the Festival invites around five to ten films to screen "out of competition". These films still get the full red carpet treatment, but aren't eligible for any of the prizes. Typically, the programme includes highly-anticipated Hollywood blockbusters through to the latest work from a respected European auteur. And more recently, several high-profile documentaries have made the cut (such as Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Sequel"), plus at least one or two midnight screenings, reserved for films that lean towards the 'cult' end of the spectrum.
Un Certain Regard
Create in 1978 to streamline some of the festival's more ambiguous programmes, Un Certain Regard (which loosely translates as, "At a Glance") is the main showcase section of the event. Intended to be a "survey of current world cinema", it typically focusses on films from newer directors, films which use innovative storytelling techniques, and work from countries which have a low cinematic output. For several decades, Un Certain Regard was non-competitive, but in 2013 the Festival de Cannes introduced a small number of awards to the programme.
Cinéfondation
Debuting for the 51st festival in 1998, Cinéfondation is a competition for work from students at film schools around the world. 15 – 20 films are selected and go on to compete for a small number of awards
Cannes Classics
In recognition of the importance of film heritage, the Festival added a new section in 2004 which has become known as Cannes Classics. The programme is used to showcase new or restored prints of classic films, and occasionally, rediscovered footage from days gone by. The festival works closely with major international archive collections and leading restoration companies to present around five films in the programme each year.
Séances Spéciales (Special Screenings)
Not strictly an official section per se, in recent years the festival has screened a handful of films outside the official programmes (and rather confusingly, also outside of the Out of Competition selection). The number of films varies from year to year, and has included work from current auteurs, documentary-makers, and festival alumni.
Read more at https://www.cannesguide.com/cannes-festival-guide/structure-of-the-cannes-film-festival/#ChIxuskILUvBQyij.99 II Semaine Internationale de la Critique (SIC) Founded in 1962 by the Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma (French Film Critics Association), the Semaine Internationale de la Critique (International Critics' Week) was the world's first film festival sidebar. The event takes place in Cannes at the same time as the Festival de Cannes, but is run independently (although these days there is a lot of coordination between the respective organisations). The principal aim of the Critics' Week is to bring work from first and second time directors to a wider audience. The official selection is far smaller than that of the Festival de Cannes, with around 10 feature films in its competition, and a similar number of shorts. The Critics' Week also hosts a small number of special screenings alongside the competitive sections. Participating films are chosen by an international panel of critics and sponsors. The Critics' Week has a long history of launching talented filmmakers on to the international stage. Notable alumni include, Bernardo Bertolucci, Barbet Schroeder, Ken Loach, Neil Jordan, John Sayles, and Kevin Smith, amongst others. In Cannes, the Critics' Week runs all screenings and other activities from its base at the Miramar on Rue Pasteur. Quinzaine des Réalisateurs The Quinzaine des Réalisateurs (Directors' Fortnight) is the second sidebar to spring up alongside the Festival de Cannes. Following the strife and eventual cancellation of the main festival in 1968, a group of French filmmakers resolved to create a new forum in which films could be presented free of politics, censorship, and elitism. 'The Quinzaine' was inaugurated in 1969 with a bumper programme of 62 features and 26 shorts. Although the programme has subsequently been slimmed down over the decades, the sidebar enjoys a slightly higher profile in Cannes than the Critics' Week due to the larger programme and current focus on films which have an interesting directorial voice. It's also the only Cannes programme which goes on tour after the main event, taking an abridged selection to a number of other cities in France and Europe. Like its older sidebar sibling, the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs is run independently of the Festival de Cannes, but all three organisations now work closely together to ensure a smooth festival experience for all. During the main festival, the Quinzaine is based in a townhouse on the Croisette called La Malmaison, located next to the JW Marriott. ACID Cannes The youngest of the sidebars, ACID Cannes was launched in 1993 by the Independent Film Distributors Association in France to showcase a small selection of films from around the world which embody independent spirit and are yet to secure distribution. Each year, the ACID selection screens around nine films and is one of the few Cannes programmes to include feature documentaries. ACID gets its mildly awkward moniker from the acronym for the rather cumbersome French name of its parent organisation – the Association du Cinéma Indépendant pour sa Diffusion. The sidebar is also run independently from the Festival de Cannes, and for a long time did not enjoy the same cosy relationship as the other two sidebars. More recently, ACID has been given enhanced status by the Festival de Cannes, so has taken its place as the third 'approved' sidebar event in Cannes. ACID shares space in La Malmaison with the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs, and after the main event in May, ACID goes on tour in several cities across France. Marché du Film Literally translating to "Film Market", but referred to by most as simply, "The Market", the Marché du Film is by far the largest event of its type in the world. Effectively a giant tradeshow, the Market has been an official part of Cannes since the early 1960s. This is where the film industry gets together to meet and do business, primarily the buying and selling of films. Although the market is run by a semi-autonomous division of the Festival de Cannes (and takes place at the same time), the event is not prestigious in any way. It is simply a business event open to anyone in the film industry who is looking to buy or has something to sell. In addition to traditional participation as either a buyer or seller, the Market now offers two specialist registration tracks for producers. The first, the Producers' Network, was launched in the late-2000s and provides a special programme of events and workshops for newer (but not first-time) producers to make international contacts, broaden their skillset, and get business done in Cannes. The second track is known as the Producers' Workshop. Started in 2012, this programme provides a series of workshops at the outset of the Market to help new and first-time producers understand the international marketplace and make the most of their time at the Marché du Film. Beyond the registration programmes for producers, the Market now has its own little posse of sidebars. Short Film Corner A dedicated market for short narrative and documentary films, which includes a series of events and workshops for short film makers. NEXT Following the lead set by other major festivals like Sundance and SXSW, in 2014 Cannes added a programme to showcase cutting edge distribution technology and new forms of storytelling. In recent years this has meant a heavy focus on virtual reality, but the programme strives to take a more holistic view of emerging technologies, techniques, and business models. NEXT has a dedicated space in the Village International Pantiero, with events, demos, and free screenings. Doc Corner The focus in Cannes is directed firmly on the narrative end of the filmmaking spectrum, but documentary-makers are by nature, a plucky bunch. As a result, the Market has a small dedicated area for those interested in buying and selling factual films to go about their business, and to give the documentary film community a chance to network with their peers. Frontières Platform A joint venture between the Marché du Film and the Fantasia International Film Festival, the Frontières Platform provides a dedicated section of industry programming and networking events aimed at genre filmmakers. There's a series of invitation-only forums and mixers, plus a buyer’s showcase where participating genre projects (completed or in post) can be put in front of industry players.
Read more at https://www.cannesguide.com/cannes-festival-guide/structure-of-the-cannes-film-festival/part2.php#7yvAgsVJ4YwSgpUw.99 https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=YZzUXPXbL4_e9QPmup6gAg&q=pakistan+at+cannes&oq=Pakistan+at+Cann&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i22i30l10.679.15174..20163...6.0..0.191.3321.0j22....2..0....1..gws-wiz.......35i39j0i131j0j0i10j0i3.MkQlwJ8-LRQ
Filmmakers from Pakistan, Nepal in Cannes programme - The Hindu
https://www.thehindu.com › Entertainment › Movies
1. Mar 5, 2019 - Filmmakers from Pakistan and Nepal have made it to the list of 15 directors for Cinefondation's Atelier programme at the Cannes Film Festival ... 2016 Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn) (1958) | Aaejay Kardar(Pakistan), ‘Cannes Classics - Restored Prints’ (Festival de Cannes) The heroine Tripti Mitra was an Indian. 1954 Painting In Pakistan | (Dir not known) ‘In Competition – Short Films’ (de Cannes)
1959 See Pakistan | W.J. Moylan, ‘In Competition – Short Films’ (de Cannes)
cinefondation@festival-cannes.fr Dear Sir/ Madam, Indpaedia is India’s Wikipedia. Like Wikipedia, it is a non- profit. We have a very small (and yet very big request), because your website does not have a ‘Search’ facility. Our request: We request for the name of every Indian film screened at the Cinefondation during the Festival de Cannes. (And its year and director) We request for the name of every Indian film awarded at the Cinefondation.We request for the name of every Indian who has been on your jury.We request for all India-related information that you might have. (Notre appel: Nous appelons chaque film indien projeté à la Cinéfondation pendant le Festival de Cannes. (Et son année et son réalisateur) Nous appelons chaque film indien récompensé à la Cinéfondation.Nous faisons appel du nom de chaque Indien qui a fait partie de votre jury. Nous faisons appel à toutes les informations relatives à l'Inde que vous pourriez avoir.) You might like to see our page, which has several references to the Cinefondation. http://www.indpaedia.com/ind/index.php/Cannes_Film_Festival_and_India#The_best_articles_about_the_Cannes_Film_Festival_and_India From the main Festival de Cannes website we have already picked up a lot of India-related information about Cinefondation. With warmest regards, Parvez Dewan PS On your page https://www.cinefondation.com/en/you might want to change You are writing youT script? to You are writing youR script? You might also want to consider changing it further to: Are you writing a script? And more, Are you looking for financial partners for your project? With warmest regards again!
https://www.quinzaine-realisateurs.com/en/edition/2012/
Cannes is a festival that had selected and honoured Indian films, sometimes with awards, within the august top tier of the competition from 1946 to 1994 quite frequently.
2014 TrueLoveStory | Gitanjali Rao, Competition Short Film>Critics week(de la Critique)
However, ([Semaine de la Critique]) confirms that the film was part of the Critics’ Week.
2014 TrueLoveStory | Gitanjali Rao, Competition Short Film>Critics week (de la Critique) 2015 Love Comes Later | Sonejuhi Sinha (USA), Short Film (de la Critique)
1951 Festival Time | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’(Festival de Cannes)
1951 Private Life Of Silk Worm | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’(Festival de Cannes)
1951 Rajasthan N° 1 | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’(Festival de Cannes)
1952 Green Glory | M. Ahmed (dir), Rustom Master (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films ‘ (Festival de Cannes)
1952 Rustic Delights | V.R. Sarma, ‘In Competition> Short Films ’ (Festival de Cannes)
1952 The Story Of Steel| : Jagat Murari ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1953 Kumaon Hills | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1953 New Lands For Old | Krishna Gopal ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1953 The Great Experiment | V.R. Sarma, ‘In Competition> Short Films ’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 Folk Dances Of India | Moham Dayaram Bhavnani (dir), Rustom Master (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 River of Hope | Moham Dayaram Bhavnani (dir), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 Feminine Fashions| Moham Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 Land Of Enlightment [sic]| Mohan Wadhwani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1955 Symphony Of Life | T.A. Abraham, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1955 The Golden River |: Pittamandalam Venktatachalapathy Pathy,’In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1957 Magic Of The Mountains | Moham Dayaram Bhavnani (dir), K. Jayawant (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1958 Mandu | Neil Gokhale‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1960 Shringar |Ravi Prakash (dir); Dara Mistry (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1961 Creation Of Woman | Charles Schwep, In Competition> Short Films INDIA, (Festival de Cannes)
1961 Kangra Et Kulu | N.S. Thapa, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1992 Pather Panchali / La Complainte Du Sentier | Satyajit Ray, 1955, Special Screenings, (de Cannes)
2002 Aag | Raj Kapoor, ‘Tribute’ (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Awara / The Vagabond | Raj Kapoor, ‘Tribute’ (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Barsaat | Raj Kapoor, ‘Tribute’ (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Khoj (In Search) | Tridib Poddar, Cinéfondation (de Cannes)
2005 Pather Panchali / La Complainte Du Sentier | Satyajit Ray, 1955, ‘Cannes Classics Restored Prints’ (Festival de Cannes)
2006 Tetris | Anirban Datta, Cinéfondation (Festival de Cannes)
2008 Anupama Chopra--Jury Members> Member - Un Certain Regard (Festival de Cannes )
2010 Titash Ekti Nadir Naam /A River Called Titash | Ritwik Ghatak, Cannes Classics (Festival de Cannes)
2011 Bollywood-The Greatest Love Story Ever Told / Bollywood- La Plus Belle Histoire D'amour (2011/ 81 minutes)| Jeff Zimbalist , Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, ‘Out Of Competition - Midnight Screenings’ (Festival de Cannes)
2012 Kalpana (1948) | Uday Shankar, ‘Cannes Classics’ (Festival de Cannes)
2013 Bollywood-The Greatest Love Story Ever Told / Bollywood- La Plus Belle Histoire D'amour (2011)| Jeff Zimbalist , Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, ‘Cinéma de la Plage’ (Festival de Cannes)
2014 Last Trip Home | Directed By : Han Fengyu (Singapore) Film Editor: Faraz Hussain, Cinéfondation/ Short film (Festival de Cannes)
2016 Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn) (1958) | Aaejay Kardar (Pakistan), ‘Cannes Classics - Restored Prints’ (Festival de Cannes) The heroine Tripti Mitra was an Indian.
2018 Dogma | Ankit Bidyadhar (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category)
2018 Neighbourhood Ties | Diya Ghosh (United Kingdom) (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category.)
2018 Sesh Proshno |: Soumadeep Sen (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category)
Other Indian films picked for the top competition tier in the past were
top ‘Selection’ category. top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
Cannes Notes, new 11 May
Lesser- known Indians at Cannes
Details needed
VISHNU INDIA
MOHAN WADHWANI INDIA
INAAMULHAQ N/A INDIA
TRIMALA ADHIKARI INDIA
M. AHMED INDIA
UMA ANAND INDIA
ANJALI INDIA
SHRI. J.S. BANDEKAR INDIA
VISHRAM BEDEKAR INDIA
SANJAY LEELA BHANSALI INDIA
TAHIR BHASIN INDIA
B. BILLIMORIA INDIA
ANIL CHATTERJEE INDIA
HARIDHAN CHATTERJI INDIA
SIDDIQ CHELLA INDIA
MASTER CHHOTU INDIA
ANUPAMA CHOPRAJOURNALIST INDIA
BANSHI CHANDRA CUPTA INDIA
CHAWLA DARPAN INDIA
ROBIN DAS INDIA
VIKAS DAS INDIA
ANIRBAN DATTA INDIA
JUGAL DEBATAIN
NANDANA DEV SEN INDIA
RITWIK GHATAK INDIA [Very well-known as a legendary director, but his Cannes-connect needs details]
PRASENJIT GHOSH INDIA
KRISHNA GOPAL INDIA
DILIS GUPTA INDIA
NAZIR HUSSAIN INDIA
SHANKER JAIKISHAN INDIA [Very well-known as legendary music directord, theirCannes-connect needs details]
Y.G. JOSHI INDIA
PANDIT KAUL INDIA
M.V. KULKARNI INDIA
RATTAN KUMAR INDIA
ASHA MATUR INDIA
SUBRATA MITRA INDIA
JEEVAN MITVA INDIA
SURYA MOHANTY INDIA
PRAKASH MOORTHY INDIA
PURNENDU MUKHERJEE INDIA
India at the Festival de Cannes: a timeline/ 10 May 2019
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
PLEASE HELP COMPLETE THIS PAGE, WHICH IS UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Indpaedia has put in more than seventy-five man-days on this page, we have chanced upon unexpected details, and yet the page is nowhere near complete. We discovered almost by accident that 'Pamposh' had competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category, and that ‘Satah Se Uthata Aadmi’ and ‘Pattiyude Divasam’ had been screened under Un Certain Regard, because the standard literature on ‘India at Cannes’ does not mention any of them. Not does it mention that Arundhati Roy has been a Feature Films juror.
If you have any additional details, even if it is about your own Short or Cinefondation film or a film in any other category, please send us ONLY the year, the film’s name and the director’s name, with a link to the Festival de Cannes website (or other reliable website, in case that category is not covered by the Festival de Cannes website). Or send us a scanned copy of an article in some major publication that supports your information.
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India at the Festival de Cannes: a timeline
1946
Neecha Nagar (La Ville Basse) | Chetan Anand |It was India's first official entry at what happened to be the first Cannes Film Festival. (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category, in which there were 44 films in 1946. (The number of films making it to this elite group was only 21 in 2018.)
Neecha Nagar won the festival’s highest honour, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (the Best Film award) (Festival de Cannes), which has since been renamed the Palme d’Or. Neecha Nagar was loosely based on Maxim Gorky’s Lower Depths and a Hindi story written by Hayatullah Ansari. It had to compete with Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (Italy), David Lean’s Brief Encounter (UK), and Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (USA).
1951
This was the fourth edition of the festival at Cannes. (There was no festival in 1948 or 1950 )
The official website of the (Festival de Cannes) does NOT list Awara either under Selection or under Awards, though several Indian writers do. Below, we will see why.
1951 Festival Time | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’(Festival de Cannes)
1951 Private Life Of Silk Worm | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’(Festival de Cannes)
1951 Rajasthan N° 1 | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’(Festival de Cannes)
1952
Amar Bhoopali | Rajaram Vankudre Shantaram (A biopic of Marathi poet Honaji Bala) (Festival de Cannes) (No poster of the film is available on the Cannes website.) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
In India it is believed that the film was nominated for the Grand Prize (well, it was among the top 35 films at Cannes that year) and won the award for Best Sound Recording, for music composed by Vasant Desai and sung by the Mangeshkar sisters. However, (Festival de Cannes) does not mention any of this under Awards. Instead, it tells us that the ‘Prix De La Meilleure Partition Musicale’ was won by Arne Mattsson for Hon Dansade En Sommar (Elle N'a Dansé Qu'un Seul Été). There is no mention of a Best Sound Recording award for Amar Bhoopali or any other film.
To be doubly sure, the film was ‘Searched’ on the Festival de Cannes website, which does not mention a Sound Recordist even in the film’s ‘credits.’
1952 Green Glory | M. Ahmed (dir), Rustom Master (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films ‘ (Festival de Cannes)
1952 Rustic Delights | V.R. Sarma, ‘In Competition> Short Films ’ (Festival de Cannes)
1952 The Story Of Steel| : Jagat Murari ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1953
Awara | Raj Kapoor (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
(Sonakshi Kurbah) and (David Lagachu) wrote: This venture was shortlisted for the much coveted honour of Palme d’Or.
In the sense that it was among the top 35 films in the Selection category that year, indeed, it was.
1953 Kumaon Hills | Mohan Dayaram Bhavnani ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1953 New Lands For Old | Krishna Gopal ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1953 The Great Experiment | V.R. Sarma, ‘In Competition> Short Films ’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954
Three Indian films competed in the top section.
Do Bigha Zamin | Bimal Roy. (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
It was awarded the International Prize / Prix International (Award.Ex Aequo ) at Cannes. (Festival de Cannes)
Mayur Panch | Kishore Sahu (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’). Poster not available
Pamposh | Ezra Mir, (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’). Poster not available. (Ezra Mir was born Edwin Myers)
Short films
1954 Folk Dances Of India | Moham Dayaram Bhavnani (dir), Rustom Master (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 River of Hope | Moham Dayaram Bhavnani (dir), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 Feminine Fashions| Moham Dayaram Bhavnani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1954 Land Of Enlightment [sic]| Mohan Wadhwani, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes) zxc
1955
There were two Indian films that competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
Biraj Bahu | Bimal Roy (Festival de Cannes)
Boot Polish (Le Petit Cireur) |Prakash Arora (Festival de Cannes)
Sonakshi Kurbah writes: Child actress Naaz won a special mention for Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish. Actually, it was bigger than that: ‘Distinction To [for?] Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo).’(Festival de Cannes). If you see the film’s poster, above, you will notice two children. It would seem that both—and not Naaz alone—were awarded. (however, that year an identical prize, ‘Distinction To Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo) had been awarded to Laszlo Vajda’s Marcelino Pan Y Vino (Marcellin, Pain Et Vin), the poster of which shows only one boy.
In the case of both films the name of the child actor being awarded has not been mentioned. It is more likely that one of the ‘two’ children to be conferred with that distinction was Naaz and the other was Vajda’s little star.
1955 Symphony Of Life | T.A. Abraham, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1955 The Golden River |: Pittamandalam Venktatachalapathy Pathy,’In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1956
There were two Indian films that competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
Pather Panchali (La Complainte Du Sentier) | Satyajit Ray (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
The film won the Prix Du Document Humain/ Best Human Document Award at the festival. (Festival de Cannes)
See Pather Panchali
Shevgyachya Shenga | Shantaram Athavale The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’). (Festival de Cannes) Poster not available
1957
Gotama The Buddha (documentary) | Rajbhans Khanna (Festival de Cannes). The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
This feature-length documentary competed with thirty feature films and won a ‘Mention Exceptionnelle (Unanimously Awarded)’ at Cannes. (Festival de Cannes) (Some Indian writers have referred to it as the Jury Prize.)
Incidentally, Erik Balling’s Qivitoq, which won the ‘Prix Du Documentaire Romanesque (Award.Ex Aequo)’ is listed two notches below Gotama The Buddha on the Cannes website’s Awards section.
1957 Magic Of The Mountains | Moham Dayaram Bhavnani (dir), K. Jayawant (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1958
Once again there were two Indian films that competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
Parash Pathar | Satyajit Ray-(Festival de Cannes)
Pardesi / Хождение за три моря (Khozhdenie za tri moray)/ Journey Beyond Three Seas |Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Vasili Pronin. (Festival de Cannes) This was an Indo-USSR co-production. However, the website of the Festival de Cannes has listed it as an Indian film. According to an Indian source the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or.
See Pardesi (1957)
1958 Mandu | Neil Gokhale ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1959
Lajwanti | Narendra Suri (Festival de Cannes): The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category but its poster is missing from the Cannes website.
Taj Mahal | Mushir Ahmed, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1960
Sujata |Bimal Roy (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
1960 Shringar |Ravi Prakash (dir); Dara Mistry (Cinematography), ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1961
1961 Creation Of Woman | Charles Schwep, In Competition> Short Films INDIA, (Festival de Cannes)
1961 Kangra Et Kulu | N.S. Thapa, ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1962
Devi |Satyajit Ray (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
1964
Mujhe Jeene Do |Moni Bhattacharjee (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category but its poster is missing from the Cannes website.
1968
Akbar | Santi S. Varma, was screened ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (Festival de Cannes)
1974
Garam Hawa | M S Sathyu (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
1976
Nishant |Shyam Benegal (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
1980
Ekdin Pratidin |Mrinal Sen (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
1981
Satah Se Uthata Aadmi |Mani Kaul, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section (Festival de Cannes)
1982
Mrinal Sen was made a member of the prestigious Feature Film jury (Festival de Cannes)
1983
Kharij |Mrinal Sen -(Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
Kharij received the Jury prize, which is listed on the website of (Festival de Cannes) as the second highest award, next only to the PALME D'OR, and higher than the Special Grand Prix for Monty Python
(Sonakshi Kurbah) and (David Lagachu) add: Kharij was nominated for the Golden Palm
Heat And Dust | James Ivory (United Kingdom) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’). (Festival de Cannes)
1984
Ghare Baire |Satyajit Ray (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
Khandhar |Mrinal Sen, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes) It is wrong to say that it was screened out of competition in 1984 ([2])
1986
Genesis |Mrinal Sen (Festival de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’).
1988
Antarjali Jatra |Gautam Ghose was screened under Un Certain Regard (Festival de Cannes)
Salaam Bombay! | Mira Nair. It won the Camera d'Or [“Caméra d'or is given to the best first film from the Official Selection, La Semaine de la Critique and the Directors' Fortnight.” Salaam Bombay! was screened in the Directors' Fortnight.] (Festival de Cannes)
(Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu) and (Manisha Dhingra |NDTV) add that Salaam Bombay! won Audience awards.
1989
Piravi |Shaji N Karun was screened in Un Certain Regard. It won the Camera d’Or (tied) in that category and a MENTION D'HONNEUR (Festival de Cannes) and not a mere Special Mention ([3]).
Ganashatru | Satyajit Ray was screened at a special screening (Festival de Cannes) and not out of competition. ([4]), ([5])
1991
Ishanou | Aribam Syam Sharma was screened under Un Certain Regard (Festival de Cannes)
Sam & Me | Deepa Mehta (Canada) won the Camera d'Or in the Critics Week category. (Festival de Cannes)
1992
1992 Pather Panchali / La Complainte Du Sentier | Satyajit Ray, 1955, Special Screenings, (de Cannes)
1994
Swaham |Shaji N Karun's The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category (i.e. ‘In Competition> Feature Films’). (Festival de Cannes)
Uttoran | Sandeep Ray was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes)
1995
Indradhanura Chhai | Susant Misra was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes) but did not compete for the Grand Prize ([6]), ([7])
1997
Gudia |Goutam Ghose was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes)
1998
The Sheep Thief | Asif Kapadia (UK) is not one of the films listed in the official ‘Short Films’ or ‘All Awards’ sections. However, (Festival de Cannes) confirms that it received the Cinefondation Award in 1998.
1999
Vanaprastham | Shaji N Karun, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes)
Marana Simhasanam | Murali Nair, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes) It won the Camera d'Or (Festival de Cannes)
2000
Arundhati Roy was a member of the jury for feature films (Festival de Cannes)
2001
Pattiyude Divasam (A Dog's Day) | Murali Nair, Was screened under Un Certain Regard (Festival de Cannes)
2002
Devdas | Sanjay Leela Bhansali had an ‘out of competition’ screening (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Aag | Raj Kapoor, ‘Tribute’ (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Awara / The Vagabond | Raj Kapoor, ‘Tribute’ (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Barsaat | Raj Kapoor, ‘Tribute’ (Festival de Cannes)
A Very Very Silent Film | Manish Jha, was screened in the Short Films category. (Festival de Cannes) It won the ‘Jury Prize for Short Film (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (Festival de Cannes)
2002 Khoj (In Search) | Tridib Poddar, Cinéfondation (de Cannes)
2003
Arimpara | Murali Nair, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(Festival de Cannes)
Aishwarya Rai was a member on the jury for feature films, which is the most prestigious of the juries. (Festival de Cannes)
2005
Nandita Das was on the top rung jury for feature films. Festival de Cannes
Pather Panchali / La Complainte Du Sentier | Satyajit Ray, 1955, ‘Cannes Classics Restored Prints’ (Festival de Cannes)
2006
Chinese Whispers | Raka Dutta, was screened in the Cinéfondation competition. Festival de Cannes
Tetris | Anirban Datta, Cinéfondation (Festival de Cannes)
2007
(Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu) writes that “Veyil, a movie from 2006, was the first Tamil movie to be screened at Cannes.”
Two searches each, using the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded ‘0 results’ for ‘Veyil,’ ‘English: Summer’ (the film’s title in English), Vasanthabalan’ (the film’s writer and director) or ‘ ‘Vasantha Balan’ (the last one fetched a dirty photo of Vidya Balan instead). With the same lack of results Indpaedia searched manually under Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out Of Competition, Cinéfondation and Short Films in 2006 (there were no Special Screenings), and under Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out Of Competition, Special Screenings, Cinéfondation and Short Films in 2007. Hours of wasted effort.
Maybe the film should be ‘searched’ for using some other expressions.
2008
About The Guide | Vijay Anand, Tad Danielewski, (Sonakshi Kurbah) wrote: ‘42 years after its theatrical release, the film was invited for a screening at the festival’s classics section.’
Readers who have read the Indpaedia page Guide (1966) would have noticed that the English-language film The Guide (1965/ dir Tad Danielewski) and the Hindi-Urdu film called Guide (1966, dir: Vijay Anand) were two different films. The English film had some American actors and characters that its Hindi-Urdu namesake did not, though both had the same producer, the same main cast and broadly the same story. They were not dubbed versions of each other.
Prints of the English version have long been considered lost and if (Sonakshi Kurbah) is right about the Tad Danielewski version, this would have been a major coup.
However, the (Festival de Cannes) website makes it clear that it was the 179-minute Vijay Anand (and, thus, Hindi-Urdu) version that was screened in the ‘RESTORED PRINTS’ section of ‘CANNES CLASSICS.’
Anupama Chopra--Jury Members> Member - Un Certain Regard (Festival de Cannes )
2010
Udaan | Vikramaditya Motwane, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section. (Festival de Cannes)
Khandahar | Mrinal Sen was screened in the ‘Restored Prints’ section of ‘Cannes Classics.’(Festival de Cannes)
Titash Ekti Nadir Naam /A River Called Titash | Ritwik Ghatak, Cannes Classics (Festival de Cannes)
2011
(Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu) writes, ‘Chatrak , an Indian-Bengali drama by Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara was screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section.’
Once again, searches for Chatrak. and Mushrooms (its English title) through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded ‘0 results’. However, Sri Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara has had two appearances at Cannes: In 2003 with his Vide Pour L'amour, which was screened in the Cinéfondation category; and in 2005 with his The Forsaken Land/ Sulanga Enu Pinisa, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard category. Indpaedia looked for the Directors’ Fortnight button on the 2011 and 2012 pages, both unsuccessfully.
However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
Bollywood-The Greatest Love Story Ever Told / Bollywood- La Plus Belle Histoire D'amour (2011/ 81 minutes)| Jeff Zimbalist , Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, ‘Out Of Competition - Midnight Screenings’ (Festival de Cannes)
2012
2012 Miss Lovely | Ashim Ahluwalia, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section. (Festival de Cannes)
2012 Gangs of Wasseypur (1 & 2) |Anurag Kashyap |
Sonakshi Kurbah, Manisha Dhingra |NDTV, Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express and Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu all write that the film was screened during the Directors' Fortnight.
Searches for ‘Anurag Kashyap’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded ‘3 results:’ to a page about Anurag Kashyap, to Udaan and to Bombay Talkies. Nothing about Gangs of Wasseypur.
However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
Peddlers | Vasan Bala (writer-director). (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express) writes that the film ‘featured at Cannes’ Critics Week’ Muslim (Manisha Dhingra |NDTV) that the film was in the ‘Feature Film line up.’
Searches on the Cannes website for Peddlers and Vasan Bala yielded ‘0 results.’
However, (Semaine de la Critique) confirms that the film was a part of the Critics’ Week.
2012 Kalpana (1948) | Uday Shankar, ‘Cannes Classics’ (Festival de Cannes)
2013
Two very well-meaning journalist [8] wrote separately to the effect that ‘The festival was inaugurated by Amitabh Bachchan who had a role in opening film The Great Gatsby.’
Was it really?
The headline of the Festival de Cannes article said something quite else: ‘Baz Luhrmann, Leonardo DiCaprio and Scott Fitzgerald to inaugurate the Festival de Cannes.’
The news item quoted someone (very obviously Baz Luhrmann) as saying, ‘It is a great honor for all those who have worked on The Great Gatsby to open the Cannes Film Festival.’
The story added, ‘This prestigious occasion will also be graced with the presence of Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, as well as the American pop star, rapper Jay-Z.’ (Emphases added.)
Ugly |Anurag Kashyap | (Sonakshi Kurbah) wrote: It was screened at the Directors' Fortnight
Searches for ‘Anurag Kashyap’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded nothing about Ugly. However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
The Lunchbox | Ritesh Batra | Sonakshi Kurbah, Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu and Manisha Dhingra |NDTV wrote that the film was showcased at the International Critics’ Week of the 2013 Cannes festival and was the winner of the Viewer's Choice Award. However, Semaine de la Critique confirms that the film was a part of the Critics’ Week.
However, searches for ‘The Lunchbox’ and ‘Ritesh Batra’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded nothing about either. Nor did a manual search of ‘All Awards’ in 2013 and 2014.
Vidya Balan was on the top rung jury for feature films. (Festival de Cannes)
Nandita Das was a member of the Cinéfondation and Short Films juries. Festival de Cannes
Bombay Talkies (an anthology film) | Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, was screened in the category ‘Special Screenings.’ (Festival de Cannes) and not ‘out of competition.’
Monsoon Shootout | Amit Kumar's was screened ‘out of competition.’ (Festival de Cannes)
Charulata | Satyajit Ray, represented Indian cinema to mark ‘100 Years Of Indian Cinema’ in the Cannes Classics section. (Festival de Cannes)
India, in 2013, was the third 'guest country' at Cannes, following Egypt in 2011 and Brazil in 2012. This was done ostensibly to celebrate the one hundred years since the birth of cinema in India. What this meant was that the Festival de Cannes officially welcomed a large delegation from the Indian film industry to Cannes. ([chrome-distiller://dbe65949-cd29-4785-b098-ed443d3c0768/?time=42700261&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.festival-cannes.com%2Fen%2Finfos-communiques%2Fcommunique%2Farticles%2Findia-special-guest-country-in-2013 Festival de Cannes])
2013 Bollywood-The Greatest Love Story Ever Told / Bollywood- La Plus Belle Histoire D'amour (2011)| Jeff Zimbalist , Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, ‘Cinéma de la Plage’ (Festival de Cannes)
2014
Titli | Kanu Behl was screened in the Un Certain Regard category (Festival de Cannes)
(Sonakshi Kurbah), (Manisha Dhingra |NDTV) and (David Lagachu) add: Titli even came close to winning the Camera d’Or– an award for the best first feature film.
True Love Story | Gitanjali Rao, Competition Short Film> Critics week (Semaine de la Critique)
2014 Last Trip Home | Directed By : Han Fengyu (Singapore) Film Editor: Faraz Hussain (India), Cinéfondation/ Short film (Festival de Cannes)
2015
Maasan | Neeraj Ghaywan was screened in the Un Certain Regard category. (Festival de Cannes). It was one of two films to be given the ‘Promizing [sic] Future Prize (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (Festival de Cannes)
Chauthi Koot | Gurvinder Singh, was screened in the Un Certain Regard category. (Festival de Cannes).
Amy | Asif Kapadia (UK) was screened in the category ‘Out of Competition’ (Festival de Cannes)
2016
Raman Raghav 2.0 |Anurag Kashyap | Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express) and (Sonakshi Kurbah) write that it was screened at the Directors' Fortnight. Like other films in the Directors' Fortnight, Raman Raghav 2.0 does not show up in Searches within the Cannes site. However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
You Are My Sunday | Milind Dhaimade, was screened at Cannes according to (Rasika Deshpande | PinkVilla ). However, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
Gudh (Nest)| Saurav Rai, was screened in the Cinefondation competition. (Festival de Cannes)
Memories And My Mother | Vikram Sengupta, was, according to (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express, screened at Cannes Cinefondation’s l’Atelier 2016. However, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
The Cinema Travellers/ Les Cinémas Voyageurs | Shirley Abraham , Amit Madheshiya. (Festival de Cannes) About the film a well-meaning journalist ([9]) wrote, ‘The Cinema Travellers was screened under the Cannes Classics category.’ While this information is somewhat incorrect, the journalist can not be blamed.
In 2016 only one film was screened in the ‘Cannes Classics’ category, the legendary Bertrand Tavernier’s Voyage A Travers Le Cinema Francais (a 2016 film).
Cannes Classics are, normally, films that were made several decades ago. The Cinema Travellers was (like maestro Tavernier’s film) only a few months old. The sub-sub-category that it was screened under was ‘Cannes Classics> Documentaries About Cinema> First Film.
Mount of Excellence | Shivajee Chandrabhushan was, according to Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express, screened among documentary films.
Indpaedia searched manually under ‘Short Films’ and looked for ‘Mount of Excellence’ and ‘Shivajee Chandrabhushan’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site, without getting a confirmation about either.
Baahubali | SS Rajamouli was, according to Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express, screened at Cannes.
Indpaedia searched manually under Out Of Competition, Special Screenings and Cinéma De La Plage ‘and looked for ‘Baahubali,’ Bahubali’ (official spelling) and ‘SS Rajamouli’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site, but got ‘0 results.’
Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn) (1958) | Aaejay Kardar (Pakistan), ‘Cannes Classics - Restored Prints’ (Festival de Cannes) The heroine Tripti Mitra was an Indian.
2017
2017 is considered a blank year for India because ‘no Indian film ha[d] made it to Cannes in 2017.’
Well, not quite.
Two young ladies kept the national flag flying at Cannes.
Dopahar Ke Badal / Afternoon Clouds | Payal Kapadia (short) was screened in the category Cinefondation. (Festival de Cannes)
Payal Kapadia was a Film and Television Institute of India student, and her film was part of the section for film school projects,
Village Rockstars | Rima Das. This was one of four titles selected by the Hong Kong-Asian Film Financing Forum for the Marche du Film (Cannes Film Market) section, according to (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express. Naturally, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
Village Rockstars by Assam’s Rima Das was then part of a new ‘work-in-progress’ section at the film market.
2018
Manto |Nandita Das, was screened in the category Un-Certain Regard. (Festival de Cannes)
2018 Sir (India / France) | Rohena Gera |Got its world premiere at the International Critics’ Week. (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express) Naturally, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
However, (Semaine de la Critique) confirms that the film was a part of the Critics’ Week, as a Feature Film.
2018 Dogma | Ankit Bidyadhar (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category)
2018 Neighbourhood Ties | Diya Ghosh (United Kingdom) (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category.)
2018 Sesh Proshno |: Soumadeep Sen (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category)
Four National Award-winning regional arthouse films— Village Rockstars, Bhayanakam, Sinjar and Nagarkirtan were screened at the India Pavilion at Cannes. (Suparna Dutt D'Cunha | Forbes)
The juries and Indians
The following years saw Indian representation in the jury
1950? A journalist ([10]) writes that Chetan Anand was the first jury member from India and that this was in 1950.
Firstly, there was no festival at Cannes in 1950. Their official website says that there was a lack of funds in 1948 and 1950. Therefore, Indpaedia searched for Chetan Anand in the 1949 and 1951 juries, all without success.
Chetan Anand’s profile on the (Festival de Cannes) site does not mention his having been on any Cannes jury.
Thus Indpaedia had put in so much wasted effort, because the Festival’s official website clearly says that ‘from 1947 to 1954, the jury was made up entirely of French celebrities.’
Indpaedia then manually searched every Feature Film and Short Film jury from 1955 to 1960, again with no mention of Mr Anand. Even more wasted effort.
1982: Mrinal Sen was a member of the Feature Films jury, which is the most prestigious of Cannes’ juries. (Festival de Cannes)
2000 Arundhati Roy was a member of the jury for feature films (Festival de Cannes)
2003: Aishwarya Rai was a member of the jury for feature films (Festival de Cannes)
2005 Nandita Das was on the same jury for feature films. Festival de Cannes
2008 Anupama Chopra--Jury Members> Member - Un Certain Regard (Festival de Cannes )
2009 Sharmila Tagore was a member of the jury for feature films. ([11])
2009 Uma DA CUNHA, Journalist, Jury member, Un Certain Regard .
2011 Gitanjali Rao was among the jurors for the 2011 Critics Week short films, write Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu and Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express. Gitanjali Rao could not be found through a Search on the Festival de Cannes website. In any case, the Critics’ Week, for short films or otherwise, is an unofficial category. However, de la Critique confirms that Rao was ‘a member of the jury in the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes in 2011. Her feature project Girgit was selected at Cinemas du Monde in 2011.’
2013 Vidya Balan was on the top rung jury for feature films. (Festival de Cannes)
2013 Nandita Das was a member of the Cinéfondation and Short Films juries. Festival de Cannes
Nandita Das has thus been a Cannes jury member twice.
2013 was also the first year when two Indians were on Cannes’ official juries.
2022 Deepika Padukone
Awards
In the elite ’Selection’ category
In Indian cricket there was, for forty years, a trend—sports writers called it a jinx -- that if a batsman scored a century on his test debut he would never score a century again.
At the Festival de Cannes, India scored the equivalent of a triple century on debut, India’s as well as Cannes’, and then never came close to the top prize again. Indeed, after 1994 no Indian film has even made it to the official ‘Selection’ (in 2018 there were 21 films in this category, all from other countries). It is like not even being eligible to participate in the World Cup or the Olympics.
In the 1970s batsman G. Vishwanath broke the ‘century on test debut’ jinx.
Indian cinema awaits the cinematic equivalent of Vishy.
In the elite ’Selection’ category India has won the following awards (and this is an exhaustive list):
1946 Neecha Nagar (La Ville Basse) | Chetan Anand |This was India's first official entry at what happened to be the first Cannes Film Festival. (Festival de Cannes) The film won the festival’s highest honour, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (the Best Film award), which has since been renamed the Palme d’Or. (Festival de Cannes)
1954: Do Bigha Zamin was awarded the International Prize / Prix International (Award.Ex Aequo) at Cannes. (Festival de Cannes)
The International Prize has since been renamed the ‘Jury Prize.’ (Jugu Abraham| DNA India)
1955 Boot Polish (Le Petit Cireur) |Prakash Arora
Baby Naaz received a Special Distinction Award for her charismatic performance in Boot Polish, Manisha Dhingra |NDTV) wrote. Actually, it was bigger than that. The film received a ‘Distinction To [for?] Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo).’(Festival de Cannes). If you see the film’s poster, elsewhere on this page, you will notice two children. It would seem that both—and not Naaz alone—were awarded. However, that year an identical prize, ‘Distinction To Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo) had been given to Laszlo Vajda’s Marcelino Pan Y Vino (Marcellin, Pain Et Vin), the poster of which shows only one boy.
In the case of both films, the names of the child actors have not been mentioned. It is possible that one of the ‘two’ children to be conferred with that distinction was Naaz and the other was Vajda’s little star.
1956 Pather Panchali won the Prix Du Document Humain/ Best Human Document Award at the festival. (Festival de Cannes)
1957 Gotoma the Buddha won a ‘Mention Exceptionnelle (Unanimously Awarded)’ at Cannes. (Festival de Cannes) (Some Indian writers have incorrectly referred to it as a Jury Prize.)
1983 Mrinal Sen | Kharij received the Jury prize, which is listed on the website of (Festival de Cannes) as the second highest award, lower only than the PALME D'OR, and higher than the Special Grand Prix for Monty Python
In other tiers
1988 Salaam Bombay! | Mira Nair: The film won the Camera d'Or [“Caméra d'or is given to the best first film from the Official Selection, La Semaine de la Critique and the Directors' Fortnight.” Salaam Bombay! was screened in the Directors' Fortnight.] (Festival de Cannes) Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu and Manisha Dhingra |NDTV add that Salaam Bombay! won an Audience award.
1989 Piravi |Shaji N Karun, won the year’s second Camera d’Or in that category (Festival de Cannes) and not a mere Special Mention ([12]).
1991 Sam & Me | Deepa Mehta (Canada) won the Camera d'Or in the Critics Week category. (Festival de Cannes)
1999 Marana Simhasanam | Murali Nair, won the Camera d'Or (Festival de Cannes)
2002 A Very Very Silent Film | Manish Jha, won the ‘Jury Prize for Short Film (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (Festival de Cannes)
2015 Maasan | Neeraj Ghaywan was one of two films to be given the ‘Promizing [sic] Future Prize (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (Festival de Cannes)
Feature films that competed at Cannes
The complete list
1946 Chetan Anand| Neecha Nagar (La Ville Basse)
1952 V Shantaram | Amar Bhopali-
1953 Raj Kapoor | Awara
1954 Ezra Mir | Pamposh
1954 Bimal Roy | Do Bigha Zamin
1954 Kishore Sahu | Mayur Pankh
1955 Bimal Roy | Biraj Bahu
1955 Prakash Arora | Boot Polish-
1956 Satyajit Ray | Pather Panchali
1956 Shantaram Athwale | Shevgyacha Shenga
1957 Rajbans Khanna | Gotama the Buddha (official spelling)
1958 Satyajit Ray | Parash Pathar
1958 Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Vasili Pronin | Pardesi/ Хождение за три моря (Khozhdenie za tri moray)/ Journey Beyond Three Seas: Nominated for the Palme d'Or. It was an Indo-USSR co-production. The website of the Festival de Cannes has listed it as an Indian film.
1959 Narendra Suri | Lajwanti-
1960 Bimal Roy | Sujata
1962 Satyajit Ray | Devi
1964 Moni Bhattacharjee | Mujhe Jeene Do
1974 M S Sathyu | Garam Hawa
1976 Shyam Benegal | Nishant
1980 Mrinal Sen | Ekdin Pratidin
1983, Mrinal Sen | Kharij
1984 Satyajit Ray | Ghare Baire
1986, Mrinal Sen | Genesis-
1994 Shaji N Karun | Swaham,
No Indian feature has made it to competition section since 1994
Shyam Benegal’s Nishant was selected to compete for the Palme d’Or in 1976. Shabana Azmi, who starred in the movie, said the director had asked them to walk up and down the promenade at Cannes, wearing saris and coaxing pedestrians to watch the film
Sonam.Joshi |CANNES CON? HOW FILMMAKERS SPIN STORIES The Times of India | Sunday, 27 May 2018
Taken in by the ‘screened at Cannes’ tag? The truth is that no Indian feature film has made it to the prestigious competition section in 24 years
Sonam.Joshi@timesgroup.com
For more than seven decades, the who’s who of the film world — and lots of wannabes — have been heading to the French Riviera in May for the biggest event of the year: the Cannes Film Festival. Besides photos of Bollywood stars on the red carpet, the Indian press is full of headlines that declare that India is creating a “splash” or “shining” at Cannes.
Social media feeds of some directors and producers also proclaim that their movies are showing at Cannes. The reality is that it’s been 24 years since an Indian feature film made it to the festival’s ‘In Competition’ section. Kerala filmmaker Shaji Karun’s Swaham, the story of a young widow who loses her son in a stampede, was the last to make the cut in 1994.
So when filmmakers boast of ‘showing at Cannes’, they’re actually talking about the cluster of events held alongside the festival. These include the Cannes Film Market or Marché du Film, one of the world’s largest movie marketplaces.
In fact this week, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri was called out for making misleading claims when he tweeted about a standing ovation for a screening of his forthcoming film, The Tashkent Files at Cannes. Agnihotri’s film was screened at the India Pavillion, curated by the information and broadcasting ministry at the Cannes Film Market every year, and not in the official competition lineup. Responding to the comments on social media, Agnihotri said he’d just retweeted links to news reports about his screening, and made no such claims. “How they frame their headlines is their prerogative. We are proud of our film and enthused with the overwhelming response it got. People can criticise whatever they want,” he said.
Veteran Cannes visitors point out that the lines between films that are officially selected for the festival and those promoted in the market are often conveniently blurred because of the exclusivity of the festival, which has launched the careers of many prominent filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh.
“It is the most prestigious film festival in the world,” says film critic Anupama Chopra.
“It occupies a space in the Indian imagination because of its glamour but there isn’t a real understanding of what the official section is.”
Besides the competition section in which movies compete for the top prize, the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm), there is also Un Certain Regard for films with an “original aim and aesthetic”. This year, for example, Nandita Das’s biopic Manto was in Un Certain Regard, while another film, Rohena Gera’s Sir, was shortlisted for the sidebar, International Critics’ Week.
Film critic Gautaman Bhaskaran recalls seeing newspaper advertisements of films that had supposedly “premiered at Cannes”. “It has one of the biggest film markets where you can sell or promote your film.
There are several small auditoriums that you can hire to screen your film, but it is not a part of the Cannes film festival unless it is an official selection.”
While anyone can screen a film at the official market, it means little in terms of prestige. “There are hundreds of films screened at the Cannes market, so it is not a stamp of quality,” Chopra says. More than 12,000 producers, distributors and sales agents, all looking to sell and buy movie rights, are at the market. With such a crowd, it is difficult to stand out though there are exceptions. “People saw and loved The Lunchbox, which was in one of the sidebars,” she says. “The sales agents have to see the film and love it.”
François-Xavier Durandy, who subtitles Hindi films in French, cites the example of two short films Asthi and Pournami, which were reportedly selected for Cannes, but were in fact part of the Short Film Corner. “Registering a film at the Short Film Corner, which is basically a market, is not the same feat as being selected at the festival,” says Durandy. “Two weeks before the festival, I got a message from the father of a young actor in one of these films expressing hope that his son would win an award. There are no awards at the Short Film Corner, Marché du Film or Directors’ Fortnight.”
So why doesn’t India, which produces a record number of films, make the Cannes cut? While Durandy blames it partly on substandard subtitles, Bhaskaran says that though India has great stories and a storytelling culture, “we don’t know how to present these stories to an audience that may or may not be familiar with the Indian milieu and way of life.”
Chopra, who was part of the Un Certain Regard jury in 2008, has her own take. “Mainstream films aren’t screened because filmmakers don’t want to expose the film before its release in India, while independent films are competing against the best in the world,” says Chopra. “I’m hoping someone cracks the main competition soon.” Till then, it’s more about the fashion than the films.
PALMING off our FILM LEGACY
Faizal Khan The Times of India 2013/05/12
It has been two decades since an Indian film made it to the competitive category at Cannes, a comedown overshadowed today by Bollywood paid premieres and sponsored red carpet appearances
One warm afternoon, sometime in April 1984, Mrinal Sen received a phone call from Cannes Film Festival’s Gilles Jacob, who had a request for the master filmmaker. The then General Delegate of the influential festival in the French Riviera was facing a dilemma because he had two Indian entries from two of the world’s greatest directors for that year’s Palme d’Or competition and he could select only one. The films were Khandhar (The Ruins) by Sen and Satyajit Ray’s Ghare Baire (The Home and the World). Ray had suffered a heart attack during the making of Ghare Baire and Sen sensed Jacob’s anxiety on behalf of the Cannes festival to select the film for competition considering the uncertainty of Ray’s career.
Ghare Baire was eventually selected for competition and Khandhar in another big-ticket official selection category, Un Certain Regard. That was the only time a Mrinal Sen film was kept out of the Cannes competition. “They obviously wanted to select Ghare Baire for the competition because of the situation,” Sen said during his last visit to Cannes three years ago when Thierry Fremaux, the new General Delegate, chose Khandhar, restored from the ruins its print had fallen into, again in the Cannes Classics section, in a rare tribute befitting its title.
Exactly a decade later, another telephone call from Jacob, this time to Shaji N Karun, an acclaimed Malayalam filmmaker, came with no strings attached. Cannes, Karun was told, had selected his new film Swaham (My Own) for the competition. “Gilles Jacob hinted at the length (141 minutes) of the film and asked if it was possible to reduce it. I politely declined and he respected my decision,” recalls Karun, whose first three films (Piravi, Swaham and Vanaprastham) were all screened in the Cannes official selection. Karun, along with his Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) classmate Sukhwant Singh Dadha, carried the eight heavy reels of Swaham on their heads to Mumbai airport to send to Cannes. It was the year Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction won the Palme d'Or.
QUANTITY VERSUS QUALITY
No such calls have come from Cannes festival since 1994, making Karun’s Swaham, the tragic tale of a mother’s dream to rescue her family which ends with her son collapsing in a military recruitment camp stampede, the last Indian film to have been selected for the Cannes competition. Not even this year, when India is the special guest country of the 66th Cannes festival beginning May 15. At a time when India is celebrating 100 years of the country’s cinema, that is not good news. The competition section of 20 films in Cannes represents the best of filmmaking in a year, revealing new trends and celebrating new thinking in world cinema. Indian films have regularly competed for the Palme d’Or, the top prize of the Cannes competition from the ’50s to the ’80s when a Satyajit Ray, Bimal Roy, Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal, Shaji N Karun or M S Sathyu shared the high table with a Vittorio de Sica, Luis Bunuel, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa or Quentin Tarantino. Today, the honour of being an equal to Lars von Trier, Terrence Malick, Michael Haneke, Pedro Almodovar or Abbas Kiorastami is eluding an Indian filmmaker.
“Good films are not accidental, they are made with proper support like finance, promotion and exhibition,” says Adoor Gopalakrishnan, whose Elipatthayam (The Rat Trap) was an official selection in Cannes (1982). “In India, we had all this support at one time, now it has completely dried out. I am not saying there is no talent today, but certainly there is no support,” rues the director. Now with that money and support available in the form of an industry, India’s B-grade commercial cinema gets the Cannes tag by often travelling to the Marche du Film or the Film Market held during the Cannes festival to screen their movies in hired preview halls by the majestic Mediterranean Sea. With a waning official selection for Indian cinema, these market-bound films on DVD assume the ‘screened-in-Cannes’ status. Aided by a publicity machine that proclaims a ‘world premiere in Cannes’, the quickly-gained spotlight stays for a while, misleading cinema lovers back home.
ART GONE ASTRAY
While the high standards of Indian cinema have been slowly replaced by market driven parameters, like a global release or the number of screens, in the past decade, the Indian-style parallel cinema has been re-emerging in countries like China, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and even Thailand.
Last year, there were two South Korean films in the Cannes competition (by Hong Sangsoo and Im Sang-soo) and two years earlier, the competition jury president Tim Burton handed over the prestigious Palme d’Or to a Thai filmmaker for the first time. Apichatpong Weera - sethakul’s Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives told the simple story of a dying old man visited by the ghosts of his dead relatives in his final days, a straightforward cultural reference to the deep belief in ghosts in Thailand. Brillante Mendoza of the Philippines, who depicts his society’s ills through violent frames of realism, has been chosen for competition in two successive years since 2008. Compared to that, only two Indian films (Udaan by Vikramaditya Motwane in 2010 and Miss Lovely by Ashim Ahluwalia in 2012, both in Un Certain Regard) have featured in the Cannes official selection in the last decade since Murali Nair’s Arimpara in 2003 (Not counting the eminently forgettable documentary on Bollywood).
India’s film lovers are longing for a return to the days when its films competed in Cannes with the best of global cinema. Many Indian filmmakers believe the promotion of mediocrity should stop and committed directors should be given the backing to express their creativity. Asked whether Indian cinema missed its masters like Ritwik Ghatak, Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen (who no longer makes films), Cannes festival’s Thierry Fremaux said during his visit to India, “You have to create your own masters”.
Sources
David Lagachu| 15 Indian Films Showcased at Cannes Over the Years |May 3, 2017| The Cinemaholic
Jugu Abraham| India’s story at Cannes| May 7, 2016 | DNA India
Manisha Dhingra | The History of India at Cannes| May 14, 2014 | NDTV
Sonakshi Kurbah | 15 Indian Films That Were Screened at Cannes Over the Years | Book My Show
Soujanya Sridharan | Seventy years of India at Cannes | May 23, 2017 | The Hindu
India at the Festival de Cannes: a timeline/ early May 2019
1946
Neecha Nagar (La Ville Basse) | Chetan Anand |It was India's first official entry atwhat happened to be the first Cannes Film Festival. (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category, in which there were 44 films in 1946. (The number of films making it to this elite group was only 21 in 2018.)
Neecha Nagarwon the festival’s highest honour, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (the Best Film award) (de Cannes), which has since been renamed the Palme d’Or. Neecha Nagar was loosely based on Maxim Gorky’s Lower Depths and a Hindi story written by Hayatullah Ansari. It had to compete with Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (Italy), David Lean’s Brief Encounter (UK), and Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (USA).
1951
This was the fourth edition of the festival at Cannes. (There was no festival in 1948 or1950 )
The official website of the (de Cannes) does NOT list Awara either under Selection or under Awards, though several Indian writers do.Below, we will see why.
1952
Amar Bhoopali | Rajaram Vankudre Shantaram (A biopic of Marathi poet Honaji Bala) (de Cannes) (No poster of the film is available on the Cannes website.) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
In India it is believed that the film was nominated for the Grand Prize(well, it was among the top 35 films at Cannes that year) and won the award for Best Sound Recording, for music composed by Vasant Desai and sung by the Mangeshkar sisters. However, (de Cannes) does not mention any of this under Awards. Instead, it tells us that the ‘Prix De La Meilleure Partition Musicale’ was won by Arne Mattsson for Hon Dansade En Sommar (Elle N'a Dansé Qu'un Seul Été). There is no mention of a Best Sound Recording award for Amar Bhoopali or any other film.
To be doubly sure, the film was ‘Searched’ on the de Cannes website, which does not mention a Sound Recordist even in the film’s ‘credits.’
1953
Awara | Raj Kapoor (de Cannes)The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
(Sonakshi Kurbah) and (Lagachu) wrote: This venture was shortlisted for the much coveted honour of Palme d’Or.
In the sense that it was among the top 35 films in the Selection category that year, indeed, it was.
1954
Do Bigha Zamin | Bimal Roy. (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
It was awarded the International Prize / Prix International (Award.Ex Aequo )at Cannes. (de Cannes)
1955
There were two Indian films that competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
Biraj Bahu | Bimal Roy (de Cannes)
Boot Polish (Le Petit Cireur) |Prakash Arora (de Cannes)
(Sonakshi Kurbah) writes: Child actress Naaz won a special mention for Raj Kapoor’s Boot Polish. Actually, it was bigger than that: ‘Distinction To [for?] Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo).’(de Cannes). If you see the film’s poster, above, you will notice two children. It would seem that both—and not Naaz alone—were awarded. (however, that year an identical prize, ‘Distinction To Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo) had been awarded to Laszlo Vajda’s Marcelino Pan Y Vino (Marcellin, Pain Et Vin), the poster of which shows only one boy.
In the case of both films the name of the child actor being awarded has not been mentioned. It is more likely that one of the ‘two’ children to be conferred with that distinction was Naaz and the other was Vajda’s little star.
1956
Pather Panchali (La Complainte Du Sentier) | Satyajit Ray (de Cannes)The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
The film won the Prix Du Document Humain/ Best Human Document Award at the festival.(de Cannes)
See Pather Panchali
1957
GotamaThe Buddha (documentary) | Rajbhans Khanna (de Cannes). The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
This feature-length documentary competed with thirty feature films andwon a‘Mention Exceptionnelle (Unanimously Awarded)’ at Cannes. (de Cannes) (Some Indian writers have referred to it as the Jury Prize.)
Incidentally, Erik Balling’s Qivitoq, which won the ‘Prix Du Documentaire Romanesque (Award.Ex Aequo)’ is listed two notches below Gotama The Buddha on the Cannes website’s Awards section.
1958
Once again there were two Indian films that competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
Parash Pathar | Satyajit Ray-(de Cannes)
Pardesi / Хождение за три моря (Khozhdenie za tri moray)/ Journey Beyond Three Seas |Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, Vasili Pronin.(de Cannes) This was an Indo-USSR co-production. However, the website of the Festival de Cannes has listed it as an Indian film.According to an Indian source the film was nominated for the Palme d'Or.
See Pardesi (1957)
1959
Lajwanti | Narendra Suri (de Cannes): The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category but its poster is missing from the Cannes website.
1960
Sujata |Bimal Roy (de Cannes)The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
1962
Devi |Satyajit Ray (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
1964
Mujhe Jeene Do |Moni Bhattacharjee (de Cannes) The filmcompeted in Cannes’top ‘Selection’ category but its poster is missing from the Cannes website.
1968
Akbar | Santi S. Varma, was screened ‘In Competition> Short Films’ (de Cannes)
1974
Garam Hawa | M S Sathyu (de Cannes)The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
1980
Ekdin Pratidin |Mrinal Sen (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
1976
Nishant |Shyam Benegal (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
1981
Satah Se Uthata Aadmi |Mani Kaul, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section-(de Cannes)
1982
Mrinal Sen was made a member of the prestigious Feature Film jury (de Cannes)
1983
Kharij |Mrinal Sen -(de Cannes)The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
Kharij received the Jury prize, which is listed on the website of (de Cannes) as the second highest award, next only to the PALME D'OR, and higher than the Special Grand Prix for Monty Python
(Sonakshi Kurbah) and (Lagachu) add: Kharij was nominated for the Golden Palm
1984
de Cannes
Ghare Baire |Satyajit Ray (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
Khandhar |Mrinal Sen, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes) It is wrong to say that it was screened out of competition in 1984 ([13])
1986
Genesis |Mrinal Sen (de Cannes) The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.
1988
Antarjali Jatra |Gautam Ghose was screened under Un Certain Regard (de Cannes)
Salaam Bombay! | Mira Nair. It won the Camera d'Or [“Caméra d'or is given to the best first film from the Official Selection, La Semaine de la Critique and the Directors' Fortnight.” Salaam Bombay! was screened in the Directors' Fortnight.] (de Cannes)
(Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu) and ([htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287 Manisha Dhingra |NDTV]) add that Salaam Bombay!won Audience awards.
1989
Piravi |Shaji N Karun was screened in Un Certain Regard. It won the second Camera d’Or in that category (de Cannes) and not a mere Special Mention ([htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287]).
Ganashatru | Satyajit Ray was screened at a special screening (de Cannes) and not out of competition. ([htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287]),([14])
1991
Ishanou | Aribam Syam Sharma was screened underUn Certain Regard (de Cannes)
Sam & Me | Deepa Mehta (Canada) won the Camera d'Or in the Critics Weekcategory. (de Cannes)
1994
Swaham |Shaji N Karun's The film competed in Cannes’ top ‘Selection’ category.(de Cannes)
Uttoran | Sandeep Ray was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes)
1995
Indradhanura Chhai | Susant Misra was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes) but did not compete for the Grand Prize ([htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287]),([15])
1997
Gudia |Goutam Ghose was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes)
1998
The Sheep Thief | Asif Kapadia (UK)is not one of the films listed in the official ‘Short Films’or ‘All Awards’ sections. However, (de Cannes) confirms that it received the Cinefondation Award in 1998.
1999
Vanaprastham | Shaji N Karun, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes)
Marana Simhasanam | Murali Nair, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes) It won the Camera d'Or (de Cannes)
2002
A Very Very Silent Film | Manish Jha, was screened in the Short Films category. (de Cannes)It won the ‘Jury Prize for Short Film (Award.Ex Aequo)’(de Cannes)
Devdas | Sanjay Leela Bhansali had an‘out of competition’ screening (de Cannes)
2003
Arimpara | Murali Nair, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section(de Cannes)
Aishwarya Rai was a member on thejury for feature films, which is the most prestigious of the juries. (de Cannes)
2005
Nandita Das was on the top rung jury for feature films. de Cannes
2006
Chinese Whispers | Raka Dutta, was screened in the Cinéfondation competition. de Cannes
2007
(Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu) writes that “Veyil, a movie from 2006, was the first Tamil movie to be screened at Cannes.”
Two searches each, using the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded ‘0 results’ for ‘Veyil,’ ‘English: Summer’ (the film’s title in English), Vasanthabalan’ (the film’s writer and director)or ‘ ‘Vasantha Balan’ (the last one fetched a dirty photo of Vidya Balan instead).With the same lack of results Indpaedia searched manually under Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out Of Competition, Cinéfondation and Short Films in 2006 (there were no Special Screenings), and under Competition, Un Certain Regard, Out Of Competition, Special Screenings, Cinéfondation and Short Films in 2007. Hours of wasted effort.
Maybe the film should be ‘searched’ for using some other expressions.
2008
About The Guide | Vijay Anand, Tad Danielewski, (Sonakshi Kurbah) wrote: ‘42 years after its theatrical release, the film was invited for a screening at the festival’s classics section.’
Readers who have read the Indpaedia page Guide (1966) would have noticed that the English-language film The Guide (1965/ dir Tad Danielewski) and the Hindi-Urdu film called Guide (1966, dir: Vijay Anand) were two different films. The English film had some American actors and characters that its Hindi-Urdu namesake did not, though both had the same producer, the same main cast and broadly the same story. They were not dubbed versions of each other.
Prints of the English version have long been considered lost and if (Sonakshi Kurbah) is right about the Tad Danielewski version, this would have been a major coup.
However, the (de Cannes) website makes itclear that it was the 179-minute Vijay Anand (and, thus, Hindi-Urdu) version that was screened in the ‘RESTORED PRINTS’ section of ‘CANNES CLASSICS.’
2010
Udaan | Vikramaditya Motwane, was screened in the Un Certain Regard section.(de Cannes)
Khandahar | Mrinal Sen was screened in the ‘Restored Prints’ section of ‘Cannes Classics.’(de Cannes)
2011
(Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu) writes, ‘Chatrak , an Indian-Bengali drama by Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara was screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section.’
Once again, searches for Chatrak. and Mushrooms (its English title) through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded ‘0 results’. However, Sri Lankan director Vimukthi Jayasundara has had two appearances at Cannes: In 2003 with his Vide Pour L'amour, which was screened in the Cinéfondation category; and in 2005 with his The Forsaken Land/ Sulanga Enu Pinisa, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard category. Indpaedia looked for the Directors’ Fortnight button on the 2011 and 2012 pages, both unsuccessfully.
However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
2012
2012 Miss Lovely | Ashim Ahluwalia,was screened in the Un Certain Regard section. (de Cannes)
2012 Gangs of Wasseypur (1 & 2) |Anurag Kashyap |
Sonakshi Kurbah,[htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287 Manisha Dhingra |NDTV], Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express and Soujanya Sridharan | The Hinduall write that the film was screened during the Directors' Fortnight.
Searches for ‘Anurag Kashyap’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded ‘3 results:’ to a page about Anurag Kashyap, to Udaan and to Bombay Talkies. Nothing about Gangs of Wasseypur.
However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
Peddlers | Vasan Bala (writer-director). (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express) writes that the film ‘featured at Cannes’ Critics Week’ Muslim ([htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287 Manisha Dhingra |NDTV]) that the film was in the ‘Feature Film line up.’
However, searches on the Cannes website for Peddlers and Vasan Bala yielded ‘0 results.’
2013
Twovery well-meaning journalist[htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287]wrote separately to the effect that‘The festival was inaugurated by Amitabh Bachchan who had a role in opening film The Great Gatsby.’
Was it really?
The headline of the (de Cannes) article said something quite else: ‘Baz Luhrmann, Leonardo DiCaprio and Scott Fitzgerald to inaugurate the Festival de Cannes.’
The news item quoted someone (very obviously Baz Luhrmann) as saying, ‘It is a great honor for all those who have worked on The Great Gatsby to open the Cannes Film Festival.’
The storyadded, ‘This prestigious occasion will also be graced with the presence of Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan, as well as the American pop star, rapper Jay-Z.’ (Emphases added.)
Ugly |Anurag Kashyap | (Sonakshi Kurbah) wrote: It was screened at the Directors' Fortnight
Searches for ‘Anurag Kashyap’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded nothing about Ugly. However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
The Lunchbox | Ritesh Batra | Sonakshi Kurbah, Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu and [htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287 Manisha Dhingra |NDTV]wrote that the film was showcased at the International Critics’ Week of the 2013 Cannes festival and was the winner of the Viewer's Choice Award.
However, searches for ‘The Lunchbox’ and ‘Ritesh Batra’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site yielded nothing about either. Nor did a manual search of ‘All Awards’ in 2013 and 2014.
Vidya Balan was on the top rung jury for feature films. (de Cannes)
Nandita Das was a member of the Cinéfondation and Short Films juries. de Cannes
Bombay Talkies (an anthology film) | Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar, Anurag Kashyap, was screened in the category ‘Special Screenings.’ (de Cannes) and not ‘out of competition.’
Monsoon Shootout | Amit Kumar's was screened ‘out of competition.’ (de Cannes)
Charulata | Satyajit Ray, represented Indian cinema to mark ‘100 Years Of Indian Cinema’ in the Cannes Classics section. (de Cannes)
2014
Titli | Kanu Behl was screened in the Un Certain Regard category (de Cannes)
(Sonakshi Kurbah), (Manisha Dhingra |NDTV) and (Lagachu) add: Titli even came close to winning the Camera d’Or– an award for the best first feature film.
2015
Maasan | Neeraj Ghaywan was screened in the Un Certain Regard category.(de Cannes). It was one of two films to be given the ‘Promizing [sic] Future Prize (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (de Cannes)
Chauthi Koot | Gurvinder Singh,was screened in the Un Certain Regard category. (de Cannes).
Amy | Asif Kapadia (UK) was screened in the category ‘Out of Competition’ (de Cannes)
2016
Gudh (Nest)| Saurav Rai, was screened in the Cinefondation competition. (de Cannes)
Memories And My Mother | Vikram Sengupta, was, according to (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express, screened at Cannes Cinefondation’s l’Atelier 2016. However, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
The Cinema Travellers/ Les Cinémas Voyageurs | Shirley Abraham , Amit Madheshiya. (de Cannes) About the film a well-meaning journalist ([16]) wrote, ‘The Cinema Travellers was screened under the Cannes Classics category.’ While this information is somewhat incorrect, the journalist can not be blamed.
In 2016 only one film was screened in the ‘Cannes Classics’ category, the legendary Bertrand Tavernier’s Voyage A Travers Le Cinema Francais (a 2016 film).
Cannes Classics are, normally, films that were made several decades ago. The Cinema Travellers was (like maestro Tavernier’s film) only a few months old. The sub-sub-category that it was screened under was ‘Cannes Classics> Documentaries About Cinema>First Film.
Raman Raghav 2.0 |Anurag Kashyap | Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express) and (Sonakshi Kurbah) write that it was screened at the Directors' Fortnight. Like other films in the Directors' Fortnight, Raman Raghav 2.0 does not show up in Searches within the Cannes site. However, Quinzaine Realisateurs has confirmed the film’s participation in the Directors’ Fortnight.
You Are My Sunday | Milind Dhaimade, was screened at Cannes according to (Deshpande | PinkVilla ). However, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
Mount of Excellence |Shivajee Chandrabhushan was, according to Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express, screened among documentary films.
Indpaedia searched manually under ‘Short Films’ and looked for ‘Mount of Excellence’ and ‘Shivajee Chandrabhushan’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site, without getting a confirmation about either.
Baahubali | SS Rajamouli was, according to Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express, screened at Cannes.
Indpaedia searched manually under Out Of Competition, Special Screenings and Cinéma De La Plage ‘and looked for ‘Baahubali,’ Bahubali’ (official spelling) and ‘SS Rajamouli’ through the ‘Search’ button on the Festival de Cannes site, but got ‘0 results.’
2017
2017 is considered a blank year for India because ‘no Indian film ha[d] made it to Cannes in 2017.’
Well, not quite.
Two young ladies kept the national flag flying at Cannes.
Dopahar Ke Badal / Afternoon Clouds | Payal Kapadia (short) was screened in the category Cinefondation. (de Cannes)
Payal Kapadia was a Film and Television Institute of India student, and her film was part of the section for film school projects,
Village Rockstars | Rima Das.This was one of four titles selected by the Hong Kong-Asian Film Financing Forum for the Marche du Film (Cannes Film Market) section, according to (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express. Naturally, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
Village Rockstars by Assam’s Rima Das was then part of a new ‘work-in-progress’ section at the film market.
Nandita Das and the actors of her Manto, viz., Rasika Dugal and Nawazuddin Siddiqui were there at the India Pavilion to unveil the film’s poster and play clips from the film.
2018
Manto |Nandita Das, was screened in the category Un-Certain Regard. (Festival de Cannes)
2018 Sir (India / France) | Rohena Gera |Got its world premiere at the International Critics’ Week. (Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express) Naturally, the Festival de Cannes site mentions neither the director nor the film.
However, (Semaine de la Critique) confirms that the film was a part of the Critics’ Week, as a Feature Film.
2018 Dogma | Ankit Bidyadhar (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category)
2018 Neighbourhood Ties | Diya Ghosh (United Kingdom) (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category.)
2018 Sesh Proshno |: Soumadeep Sen (It was a short film, but Festival de Cannes does not mention its category)
Four National Award-winning regional arthouse films— Village Rockstars, Bhayanakam, Sinjar and Nagarkirtan were screened at the India Pavilion at Cannes. (Suparna Dutt D'Cunha | Forbes)
Nandita Das and the actors of her Manto, viz., Rasika Dugal, Divya Dutta, Rajshri Deshpande, Tahir Raj Bhasin and Nawazuddin Siddiqui were there at the India Pavilion to unveil the film’s poster and played clips from the film.
The members of the Indian delegation included Prasoon Joshi, Chairman of CBFC, Vani Tripathi Tikoo, member CBFC and filmmakers Shaji N. Karun, Jahnu Barua and Bharat Bala. This year FICCI took over took over the management of the pavilion from NFDC.
The Indian pavilion showcased:
Dhanush’s first international project The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir
T for Tajmahal,
The Tashkent Files
Bhonsle (Manoj Bajpayee was the film’s leading man and also one of the film’s producers).
Actor Manoj Bajpayee calls his Cannes Film Festival trips jinxed. He could be there only for a day on his first visit in 2012 when his Gangs of Wasseypur played in the Director’s Fortnight. This year he has been in Cannes barely for three days to unveil the poster and first look of the upcoming Bhonsle, in which he doesn’t just play the eponymous role but.
2021
Director Payal Kapadia’s A Night Of Knowing Nothing won the Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) award for best documentary at the 74th Cannes Film Festival on Saturday. The Mumbai-based filmmaker and FTII alumni’s first [film] was up against 28 other documentaries presented across various sections of the festival. It screened as part of the Directors’ Fortnight. The Oeil d’or jury was headed by American documentary producer Ezra Edelman, and the award was instituted in 2015 by LaScam (the French-Speaking Writers’ Society) and Bertuccelli in collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival. A Night Of Knowing Nothing follows a university student in India, who writes letters to her estranged lover while he is away. PTI
2022
India was the ‘Country of Honour’ at the Cannes Film Market
India sent five start ups to pitch to the audio-visual industry aside from 10 professionals for the animation-day networking.
R Madhavan’s ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’ was premiered and screened
Centenary year of Satyajit Ray: India screened the digitally remastered ‘Pratidwandi’.
Restoration World Premiere: The Cannes Film Festival selected ‘Thamp’ (The Circus Tent) (1978) by Aravindan Govindan.
India’s Film Bazaar/ ‘Work in Progress’ premiered the following at the ‘Goes to Cannes’ section
Assamese film ‘Baghjan’ by Jaicheng Zxai Dohutia,
Shailendra Sahu’s Chhattisgarhi film ‘Bailadila’,
Ektara Collective’s Hindi film ‘Ek Jagah Apni’ (A Space of Our Own),
Harshad Nalawade’s ‘Follower’ in Marathi, Kannada and Hindi,
Jai Shankar’s ‘Shivamma’ in Kannada.
The juries and Indians
The following years saw Indian representation in the jury
1950? A journalist ([17]) writes that Chetan Anand was the first jury member from India and that this was in 1950.
Firstly, there was no festival at Cannes in 1950.Their official website says that there was a lack of funds in 1948 and 1950. Therefore, Indpaedia searched for Chetan Anand in the 1949 and 1951 juries, all without success.
Chetan Anand’s profile on the (de Cannes) site does not mention his having been on any Cannes jury.
Thus Indpaedia had put in so much wasted effort,because the Festival’s official website clearly says that ‘from 1947 to 1954, the jury was made up entirely of French celebrities.’
Indpaedia then manually searched every Feature Film and Short Film jury from 1955 to 1960, again with no mention of Mr Anand. Even more wasted effort.
1982: Mrinal Sen was a member of the Feature Films jury, which is the most prestigious of Cannes’ juries. (de Cannes)
2003: Aishwarya Rai was a member on the jury for feature films (de Cannes)
2005 Nandita Das was on the same jury for feature films. de Cannes
2009 Sharmila Tagore was a member of the jury for feature films. ([18])
2009 Uma Da Cunha was a member of the Un Certain Regard jury. (Festival de Cannes)
2011 Gitanjali Rao was among the jurors for the 2011 Critics Week short films, write Soujanya Sridharan | The Hinduand Shivangi Jalan | Indian Express. Gitanjali Rao could not be found through a Search on the Festival de Cannes website. In any case, the Critics’ Week, for short filmsor otherwise, is an unofficial category.
2013 Vidya Balan was on the top rung jury for feature films. (de Cannes)
2013 Nandita Das was a member of the Cinéfondation and Short Films juries. de Cannes
Nandita Das has thus been a Cannes jury member twice.
2013 was also the first year when two Indians were on Cannes’ official juries.
Awards
=In the elite ’Selection’ category
In Indian cricket there was, for forty years, a trend—sports writers called it a jinx -- that if a batsman scored a century on his test debut he would never score a century again.
At the Festival de Cannes, India scored the equivalent of a triple century on debut, India’s as well as Cannes’, and then never came close to the top prize again. Indeed, after 1994 no Indian film has even made it to the official ‘Selection’ (in 2018 there were 21 films in this category, all from other countries). It is like not even being eligible to participate in the World Cup or the Olympics.
In the 1970s batsman G. Vishwanath broke the ‘century on test debut’ jinx.
Indian cinema awaits the cinematic equivalent of Vishy.
1946 Neecha Nagar (La Ville Basse) | Chetan Anand |This was India's first official entry at what happened to be the first Cannes Film Festival. (de Cannes) The film won the festival’s highest honour, the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film (the Best Film award), which has since been renamed the Palme d’Or. (de Cannes)
1954: Do Bigha Zamin was awarded the International Prize / Prix International (Award.Ex Aequo) at Cannes. (de Cannes)
The International Prize has since been renamedthe ‘Jury Prize.’(Abraham| DNA India)
1955 Boot Polish (Le Petit Cireur) |Prakash Arora
Baby Naaz received a Special Distinction Award for her charismatic performance in Boot Polish, Manisha Dhingra |NDTV) wrote. Actually, it was bigger than that. The film received a ‘Distinction To [for?] Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo).’(de Cannes). If you see the film’s poster, elsewhere on this page, you will notice two children. It would seem that both—and not Naaz alone—were awarded. However, that year an identical prize, ‘Distinction To Two Chi[l]dren’ (Award.Ex Aequo) had been given to Laszlo Vajda’s Marcelino Pan Y Vino (Marcellin, Pain Et Vin), the poster of which shows only one boy.
In the case of both films, the names of the child actors have not been mentioned. It is possible that one of the ‘two’ children to be conferred with that distinction was Naaz and the other was Vajda’s little star.
1956 Pather Panchali won the Prix Du Document Humain/ Best Human Document Award at the festival. (de Cannes)
1957 Gotoma the Buddha won a ‘Mention Exceptionnelle (Unanimously Awarded)’ at Cannes. (de Cannes) (Some Indian writers have incorrectly referred to it as a Jury Prize.)
1983 Mrinal Sen | Kharij received the Jury prize, which is listed on the website of (de Cannes) as the second highest award, lower only than the PALME D'OR, and higher than the Special Grand Prix for Monty Python
In other tiers
1988 Salaam Bombay! | Mira Nair: The film won the Camera d'Or [“Caméra d'or is given to the best first film from the Official Selection, La Semaine de la Critique and the Directors' Fortnight.” Salaam Bombay! was screened in the Directors' Fortnight.] (de Cannes) Soujanya Sridharan | The Hindu and [htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287Manisha Dhingra |NDTV] add that Salaam Bombay! wonan Audience award.
1989 Piravi |Shaji N Karun, won the year’s second Camera d’Or in that category (de Cannes) and not a mere Special Mention ([htp://movies.ndtv.com/bollywood/the-history-of-india-at-cannes-639287]).
1991 Sam & Me | Deepa Mehta (Canada) won the Camera d'Or in the Critics Week category. (de Cannes)
1999 Marana Simhasanam | Murali Nair, won the Camera d'Or (de Cannes)
2002 A Very Very Silent Film | Manish Jha, won the ‘Jury Prize for Short Film (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (de Cannes)
2015 Maasan | Neeraj Ghaywan was one of two films to be given the ‘Promizing [sic] Future Prize (Award.Ex Aequo)’ (de Cannes)
2021 A Night Of Knowing Nothing / Payal Kapadia won the Oeil d’or for best documentary
The Red Carpet
What the “Red Carpet Steps” mean to the Festival authorities
The director of the 2019 Festival de Cannes said, ‘They are our flagship! No doubt they are the part of the festival that draws the most media attention. For the organisation, they represent above all an opportunity to give an initial and equally special welcome to both the world’s greatest film artists and emerging talent. They also represent an opportunity to honour the creativity of those artists on whom the Festival’s prestige depends. ’ (Emphasis added.)
In other words, as Cannes- regulars note, when celebrities pose for photo calls it generates more publicity for the festival and improves its image, especially among people who like the films, even if not art cinema.
Who gets invited to walk on the Red Carpet?
Those whose films are ‘in competition’ or in the ‘official selection’ at the festival (including stars, producers, executive producers, writers and directors; as well as crew members, family members, friends and other glamourous types specified by the producer).
The various international and national brand ambassadors of the sponsors of the festival. That is how most Indian (and Pakistani) glamour girls, whose films are not being screened, make the Red Carpet. Theirs, often, are sponsored red carpet appearances
Select media persons.
Members of the jury.
Members of national delegations. Many Indian cineastes on the Carpet are there in this category.
Commoners like us who merely want to be photographed on the red carpet, without a ’red carpet team’ greeting them, just need a festival ticket to walk on that much sought after road-and-staircase covering.
In Competition
‘Films that are representative of "arthouse cinema with a wide audience appeal" are presented in Competition.’ (Festival de Cannes) (In 2017 there were nineteen films in this section and 21 in 2018.)
Un Certain Regard
‘Un Certain Regard focuses on works that have an original aim and aesthetic, and are guaranteed to make a discreet but strong impact on screens around the world.’ (Festival de Cannes) The Un Certain Regard section was started in 1978. Twenty years later, in 1998, the Prix Un Certain Regard was awarded for the first time.
The name literally means ‘in some perspective’ or ‘from a certain perspective.’ Thus, films in this category are those that try to look at things "from another perspective (point of view)"
A maximum of twenty "original and different" feature films are screened in this section every year. (In 2017 there were eighteen films and 18 in 2018 as well.)
The Official Selection ‘includes Out of Competition films, Special Screenings and Midnight Screenings, the historically important films featured in Cannes Classics and the Cinéfondation selection of films submitted from film schools. The important thing is that this Selection is both balanced and representative of the love of cinema at the time in terms of creativity and geography. (Emphasis added) (Festival de Cannes)
‘The Out of Competition films are often films that have a big impact on the cinematic calendar, and the Special Screenings and Midnight Screenings represent a special opportunity to view more personal works. Restored copies of films that are important in the history of cinema are brought back to life for Cannes Classics, which also offers tributes and documentaries focusing on cinema.’ (Festival de Cannes)
Short films
‘At Cannes, short films feature a) in the Competition, at the end of which the Short Films Jury awards a Palme d’or, and b) in the Short Film Corner, a professional area dedicated to meeting people, exchanging ideas and promoting films.
‘In 2010, the Festival created "Cannes Court Métrage" to bring these two entities together in a complementary dynamic in an attempt to offer an all-encompassing panorama of short film production worldwide, as well as to stimulate the creativity of short film artists.’ (Festival de Cannes)
The Caméra d’or
‘The Caméra d’or is awarded to the best film presented either in the Official Selection, during Directors’ Fortnight or during the Semaine de la Critique’ (Festival de Cannes)
Cinéfondation
‘The Cinéfondation presents film school works and organises the Residence and the Workshop. The development of ‘Cannes Short Films’ is another step in this direction.’ (Festival de Cannes)
The Red Carpet
What the “Red Carpet Steps” mean to the Festival authorities
The director of the 2019 Festival de Cannes said, ‘They are our flagship! No doubt they are the part of the festival that draws the most media attention. For the organisation, they represent above all an opportunity to give an initial and equally special welcome to both the world’s greatest film artists and emerging talent. They also represent an opportunity to honour the creativity of those artists on whom the Festival’s prestige depends. ’ (Emphasis added.)
In other words, as Cannes- regulars note, when celebrities pose for photo calls it generates more publicity for the festival and improves its image, especially among people who like the films, even if not art cinema.
Who gets invited to walk on the Red Carpet?
Those whose films are ‘in competition’ or in the ‘official selection’ at the festival (including stars, producers, executive producers, writers and directors; as well as crew members, family members, friends and other glamourous types specified by the producer).
The various international and national brand ambassadors of the sponsors of the festival. That is how most Indian (and Pakistani) glamour girls, whose films are not being screened, make the Red Carpet. Theirs, often, are sponsored red carpet appearances
Select media persons.
Members of the jury.
Members of national delegations. Many Indian cineastes on the Carpet are there in this category.
Commoners like us who merely want to be photographed on the red carpet, without a ’red carpet team’ greeting them, just need a festival ticket to walk on that much sought after road-and-staircase covering.
Pix
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Indian actresses on the Red Carpet
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Given India’s association with the Festival de Cannes since its very first edition, Indian actresses must have walked on the Red Carpet several times since 1946—obviously in staid saris in those days. However, the only pre-2002 photograph available is that of Shabana and Smita from 1986.
Below is a very partial list of Indian actresses on the Cannes Red Carpet. Additional information (including missing details about the wardrobes of the ladies mentioned) may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.
Aishwarya Rai (2002-2019, without a break): Rai was on the Red Carpet in 2002 because of Devdas and in 2003 as a member of the top jury. After that it has mostly been as the face of L'Oreal. The fashion police condemned her dress in 2003 and gave it a thumbs up in 2008. Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wore saris to begin with, and then, occasionally, global brands. By and large she has stayed with Indian wear. In 2002, during her first appearance at Cannes, she wore a golden Neeta Lulla saree. In 2014 she wore a golden Roberto Cavalli and, in 2015, a monochrome Ralph-Russo dress, pleated origami-style.
Amitabh Bachchan walked on the Red Carpet in 2007 because his film Cheeni Kum had a private, non-official screening.
Arundhati Roy was on the Cannes jury in 2000 and, thus, on the Red Carpet. During the festival she voiced her views on the Narmada dam project.
The Bachchans: Abhishek, has on occasion, accompanied wife Aishwarya. In 2008, Amitabh, Jaya, Aishwarya and Abhishek (accompanied by ‘honorary family member’ Amar Singh) walked on the Red Carpet, en famille.
Bai Ling (USA) wore a cocktail dress by Rohit Gandhi-Rahul Khanna.
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Deepika Padukone
Diana Penty made her debut at Cannes in 2019 because of her association with Grey Goose.
Freida Pinto In 2013 she wore a tailored, grey- beaded gown with matching Jimmy Choo shoes and bag. In other years she has worn i) red and a coral dress by Oscar de la Renta, no jewellery and her hair parted on the side; and ii) a white and gold Manish Arora dress.
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Hofit Golan (Israel) wore a golden gown by Gaurav Gupta.
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Hina Khan (2019)
Huma Qureshi’s first Cannes trip was because of her role in Gangs of Wasseypur.
Kangana Ranaut’s debut at Cannes was at the invitation of Grey Goose. She wore clothes by Sabyasachi. Zuhair Murad and others. At Cannes she once donned the Audrey Hepburn look in a hand-dyed metallic Sabyasachi saree. She has also worn a Falguni and Shane Peacock designed saree.
Katrina Kaif wore a red lace, Elie Saab, belted, evening gown
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Mallika Sherawat (2005) was there because of her brief role in Jackie Chan's The Myth, and wore jewellery worth Rs 4.5 crore and an expensive ghagra choli, which showcased her assets generously. She explained why she wore ethnic Indian clothes, 'If I am going to compete with a French 'chef', it is no use trying to compete with cheese and wine. I will rather present the tandoor from Haryana.' Bright girl.
Melita Toscan du Plantier, a French film producer, has worn an art deco-inspired dress by Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla.
Nandita Das was twice on the Cannes jury (2005, 2013). in 2018 her film, Manto, was screened officially. On the Red Carpet she has worn silk saris, lehengas and shalwar qameezes
Neena Gupta has worn a yellow sari at Cannes; later she wore a Masaba Gupta outfit for another appearance at the festival.
Paris Hilton wore a traditional Falguni and Shane Peacock gown at Cannes.
Preity Zinta made it to the Red Carpet for many years as the brand ambassador of Chopard.
Priyanka Chopra made her Cannes debut in 2019.
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Rasika Dugal was at the festival for her film, Manto, and wore a blue sari by Raw Mango.
Richa Chadda has worn different styles at Cannes.
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Shabana Azmi was at Cannes in 1976 for her film NIshant.
Sharmila Tagore was on the carpet as a member of the jury.
Smita Patel was at Cannes in 1976 for her film NIshant.
Sonam Kapoor’s stint on the Red Carpet has perhaps been the second longest, after Aishwarya Rai’s (Nandita Das, who has mostly been to the festival as an official invitee or a representative of India might rank at no.3). Sonam goes there as the brand ambassador of L'Oreal. On her Cannes debut she wore a saree by Rohit Bal. In 2013 Sonam Kapoor also sported an elaborate nath (nose ring). In 2014 she wore a dhoti and, at the "Foxcatcher" premiere, a pale pink sari with a sheer cape, both by Anamika Khanna. On the red carpet in 2016 Sonam Kapoor wore a Ralph and Russo creation. In 2017 she was dressed in a faite sur mesure Ralph & Russo robe that looked like a lehenga. She had just got married, so she wore clothes that went well with her mehendi tattoo. She rounded off that theme with an Amrapali parandi in her hair.
Tillotama Shome wore dresses designed by Payal Khandwala and péro.
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Uma Da Cunha was on the carpet as a member of the Un Certain Regard jury in 2009
Vidya Balan wore a saree at Cannes.
The Sources of this page include...
Lagachu| 15 Indian Films Showcased at Cannes Over the Years |May 3, 2017| The Cinemaholic
Abraham| India’s story at Cannes| May 7, 2016 | DNA India
Manisha Dhingra | The History of India at Cannes| May 14, 2014 | NDTV
Sonakshi Kurbah | 15 Indian Films That Were Screened at Cannes Over the Years | Book My Show
Soujanya Sridharan | Seventy years of India at Cannes | May 23, 2017 | The Hindu
See also
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