Cannes film selection list out, India misses the mark
The 70th edition of Cannes Film Festival is going to be exciting
With the final lineup for Cannes Film Festival’s 70th edition announced, the buzz surrounding the festival has increased.
The Cannes line-up was announced to reveal an interesting mix of films to be showcased. With global issues being highlighted in some films while others have themes of a political nature, the festival is set to raise conversations. India, which has in the previous few years not found much representation at the prestigious cinema platform, has this year seen only one selection, in the Cinéfondation Selection.
As the announcement came for the films to be showcased, it was revealed that for the first time a virtual reality film will be screened at Cannes. Directed by Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu and illuminated by Emmanuel Lubezki, the film Carne Y Arena is set to be an immersive experience that has inputs from real life stories of immigrants and refugees who attempt to cross the border between Mexico and US.
#VirtualReality comes to #Cannes https://t.co/657OE2KoCn This #VR Installation from Emmanuel Lubezki & Alejandro G. Iñárritu sounds amazing! pic.twitter.com/N2QtVC6ZRJ
— Eric Melin (@SceneStealrEric) April 14, 2017
Several works financed by Netflix and Amazon are also going to be showcased at the prestigious festival. Lovers of television shows have also found reason to celebrate as David Lynch’s Twin Peaks will also find a space, with the first two episodes of its new season being screened. Some notable commentaries such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Sequel will be screened, which is the follow up to his climate-change addressing documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Politically charged cinema is all set to be showcased at this festival, with movies such as Sea Sorrow by Vanessa Grave giving a historical insight to how today’s migrant ‘crisis’ came about. Director Claude Lanzmann’s Napalm, as a special screening will be a documentary about North Korea.
Television is coming to the Cannes Film Festival for the first time in its 70-year history. This is major: https://t.co/9rewW1M4iy pic.twitter.com/HHzxgfGgGM
— IndieWire (@IndieWire) April 14, 2017
India fares poorly
Even as many filmmakers from the country have submitted films, official selections for cinema has been limited to only one short film from India. This film, Afternoon Clouds by Payal Kapadia is going to be showcased in the Cinéfondation Selection. Kapadia is a third-year student at Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Confirmed by Gilles Jacob, the president of Cinéfondation, Kapadia has been invited to present her film at Cannes, as per a statement by FTII. This year, Cinéfondation Selection will showcase 16 films “chosen from 2,600 works submitted by film schools from all over the world”.
#FTII student Payal Kapadia’s ‘AFTERNOON CLOUDS’ a 13′ film is selected in the Cinéfondation Selection of 70th edition of @Festival_Cannes! pic.twitter.com/d26yDKec1f
— FTII (@FTIIOfficial) April 13, 2017
In the past few years, India has barely found representation at the film festival known to the world as the Mecca of filmmakers. A few short films have made it to the Cinéfondation Selection and the most notable film has been Masan in 2015’s Un Certain Regard section. Anurag Kashyap has been another Indian figure who demands the world’s attention at Cannes through the Director’s Fortnight screening. However, when it comes to selection of feature films, India has performed rather unsatisfactorily.
