Highlights
- The India Pavilion at Cannes is normally a deadbeat space where you find random people hanging about. Every year, we usually avoid going there because there really isn’t much going on.
- Last year, the highlight at the Pavilion was the inauguration by Mallika Sherawat. So imagine my surprise when I walked into an absolutely buzzing India Pavilion this year.
- The Film Bazaar cocktails were on and the place was packed with filmmakers, buyers, distributors and enthusiasts of Indian cinema.
- Among the names: Anurag Kashyap, Anusha Rizvi, Ashutosh Gowariker, Bobby Bedi, Sunil Doshi and Christian Jeune – the esteemed programmer from the Cannes film festival.
- This year, the Pavilion is being run by the NFDC along with the Ministry of Tourism, who have wisely realized that movies are the best way to boost tourism (refer to influx of Indian tourists into Switzerland post Yash Chopra’s movies). As part of the initiative, NFDC is promoting six ‘Hindie’ filmmakers, including Kashyap and Rizvi in Cannes. Anurag talked about taking in several meetings, to set up co-productions and develop scripts.
- There was unanimous agreement that finally the India Pavilion seemed to be fulfilling its function – to promote India and Indian cinema in Cannes. However there was no such consensus in the response to Bollywood: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, an 81-minute documentary co-produced by Shekhar Kapur and UTV and co-directed by Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra.
The India Pavilion at Cannes is normally a deadbeat space where you find random people hanging about. Every year, we usually avoid going there because there really isn't much going on.
Last year, the highlight at the Pavilion was the inauguration by Mallika Sherawat. So imagine my surprise when I walked into an absolutely buzzing India Pavilion this year.
The Film Bazaar cocktails were on and the place was packed with filmmakers, buyers, distributors and enthusiasts of Indian cinema.
Among the names: Anurag Kashyap, Anusha Rizvi, Ashutosh Gowariker, Bobby Bedi, Sunil Doshi and Christian Jeune - the esteemed programmer from the Cannes film festival.
This year, the Pavilion is being run by the NFDC along with the Ministry of Tourism, who have wisely realized that movies are the best way to boost tourism (refer to influx of Indian tourists into Switzerland post Yash Chopra's movies). As part of the initiative, NFDC is promoting six 'Hindie' filmmakers, including Kashyap and Rizvi in Cannes. Anurag talked about taking in several meetings, to set up co-productions and develop scripts.
There was unanimous agreement that finally the India Pavilion seemed to be fulfilling its function - to promote India and Indian cinema in Cannes. However there was no such consensus in the response to
Bollywood: The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, an 81-minute documentary co-produced by Shekhar Kapur and UTV and co-directed by Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra.
The documentary aims to re-create the experience of the traditional masala Bollywood film for a Western audience and focuses mainly on song and dance. Some people saw it as a pleasurable entry for Westerner into Hindi cinema.
Ashutosh said that it was a great way to get viewers interested in Hindi movies and then hopefully lead them to discover that in fact there are many types of Hindi films. Others weren't so enamored.
Many Indians saw it as limiting and confused. The film didn't work for me either. Parts, especially the end, had emotional heft but I found the lack of context in the film puzzling and structure, problematic.
Rakeysh said that he didn't want to spoon-feed the audience but I'm not sure what non-Indians will take away from it. Of course the song and dance had an infectious energy but the narrative was frustratingly disjointed. For me, this was an opportunity lost!