India at Cannes: This year and back then

By: Priya Goswami

Recently with the changing trends what has come across is the shifting focus of the ‘Indian Cinema’ vis-à-vis their agendas in offshore publicity and promotion of their handiwork. One can clearly see the paradigmatic movement, from showcasing of finery to taking on the world with full on overseas marketing strategies. Such is the trajectory of India at the Cannes Film Festival, starting from the 50s to this year marking the 60th meet of Festival de Cannes 2007. India’s association with the Cannes is rather an old one, with Satyajit Ray as one of the prominent names in the legacy. His ‘Pather Panchali’ won an award at the Cannes and the screening of several of his subsequent movies in the coming years including, ‘Devi’ in 1962, ‘Ghare Baire’ in 1984 and ‘Ganashatru’ in 1989, followed this landmark achievement. In fact, in the year 2005, the classic section at the Cannes opened with Ray`s ‘Pather Panchali’ to mark the 50th anniversary of the film.

In the early 1950s the Cannes Film Festival, showcased several mainstream Indian films. V. Shantaram`s ‘Amar Bhoopali’, Bimal Roy`s ‘Do Bigha Zamin’ (a prize-winner), Raj Kapoor`s ‘Awara’ and the Kapoor-produced ‘Boot Polish’ (which won a special award for child actress Baby Naaz). The tradition was continued through ‘not so mainstream films’ or ‘art’ movies including, M. S. Sathyu`s ‘Garam Hawa’, Shyam Benegal`s ‘Nishant’, Mrinal Sen`s ‘Ek Din Pratidin’, ‘Kharij’ (it also won the Special Jury Prize in 1983) and ‘Genesis’. These were among the movies that were featured at Cannes giving the directors the symbolic token of appreciation for their films. After a brief period of inactivity, there was a certain spurt, as the Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai., created quite a stir in the Indian and international media when she was selected as a jury member for this prestigious event. With the noted actress, Nandita Das repeating the history as the jury member at the Cannes 2005, Bollywood per say got bolder at the festival. Before this it was Mira Nair and Arundhati Roy who charmed the festival. ‘Bollywood Bombshell’ Malika Sherawat too walked the red carpet for promotion of ‘The Myth’ with Jackie Chan.

But with all this came the great Indian cinematic paradox that although films like ‘Devdas’ ‘Black’, ‘The Rising’ and ‘Kisna’ were given the screen space, the response towards them was rather lukewarm.

In 2002, Sanjay Leela Bansali`s ‘Devdas’ was screened in the official section, but had the audience walking out of the theatre half way through. Last year Ketan Mehta`s ‘The Rising’ and Bansali`s ‘Black’ tried competing but were rejected. An abridged English version of Subhash Ghai ‘Kisna’ was part of the other movies that were screened in the market section but failed to break the truce. The bright part remains the increasing crescendo of the promotional material exported at the Cannes. The India Pavilion has been set up by CII along with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for the Indian group to market their films. This year, the focus is on promoting India as a shooting and postproduction hub. The year 2007 marks 60 years of Indian Independence and 60 years of Cannes Film Festival. Eight Indian films will be screened as part of the Cinema of the World Section at Cannes on May 19 and May 20. This is the first time two days have been dedicated to a country.

As a presenting partner, the NFDC will present five - seven producers from Indian cinema, to participate in the Producers Network on the Indian spotlight day - 22nd May 2007. The top Indian film entertainment companies have a variety of films contending for overseas distribution. UTV Motion Pictures, iDream Independent Pictures, Studio 18, Shemaroo Entertainment, Eros International and Adlabs Films are some of the key companies and anchors to watch for at the Cannes Film Market in May 2007. UTV will also display its entire film catalogue at Cannes. This includes blockbusters like ‘Swades’, ‘Parineeta’, ‘Viruddh’, ‘Chup Chup Ke’, ‘Don’, ‘Blue Umbrella’ and ‘Rang De Basanti’, all from UTV’s archetypal collection. With all this, the shift and the focus both become clearer and one knows where the bend of the river leading to. Even though promotion is wide scaled, absence of an official entry at the Cannes is another striking feature. Typically also, none from this large Indian contingent have been formally invited to the festival. People making headway to the place this year are mostly doing so for promoting their films.

Though the overseas marketing prospects are bright at Cannes, the qualitative aspect of the art seems to be totally brushed under the carpet. India should not forget that even ‘non- western’ countries like China, Iran, Korea have performed wonderfully well at the festival. India needs to do more to break the ‘creative stalemate’ at world cinema’s showpiece event.