From the Classic to the Contemporary Indian Movies at the Cannes

2024 was a big year for India at the Cannes Film Festival because our movies were not only shown and celebrated, they also won. Payal Kapadia won the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival for her fiction feature debut All We Imagine as Light. While it was a major win for her and the country, it was not her first time at the French riviera. In 2017, Kapadia’s short film Afternoon Clouds was selected for the 70th Cannes Film Festival.  In 2021, she won the Golden Eye award for best documentary film at the 74th Cannes Film Festival for her debut feature A Night of Knowing Nothing. This year Kapadia returns to the haloed red carpet as a jury member for the main competition.

The 78th annual Cannes Film Festival, which kicked off yesterday and continues till May 24, will see a handful of Indian films. The movies at this year’s festival span the vintage to the contemporary. A restored version of Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri, 1970, will allow audiences to once again partake of this story set around four young friends and their journeys of self discovery and discovering each other. The film has been restored by Film Heritage Foundation, a Mumbai-based non-profit organisation, “dedicated to film preservation, restoration and archiving of India’s film heritage.” Sharmila Tagore who immortalised the role of the enigmatic and mysterious Aparna in the film will be present at the screening.

While Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri is a classic, this year’s festival will also see the much-awaited Homebound, directed and written by Neeraj Ghaywan (of Masaan fame, which also premiered at Cannes) and starring Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor. It has been selected for the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival. Interestingly, Martin Scorsese is the executive producer of Homebound, which might just give it an international edge. The film tells of two friends from a North Indian village pursuing police jobs to get by in life, and the challenges and desperation that pockmark their way.

The other movie in the competition section of the festival is A Doll Made up of Clay. It has been written and directed by Kokob Gebrehaweria Tesfay, an Ethiopian student at The Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Kolkata. The film is part of a section dedicated to the work of student filmmakers. It tells of African footballers in Kolkata, and their hopes and transformations, migration and belonging.

The other Indian film at Cannes this year is Anupam Kher’s Tanvi the Great. While little is known about the plot, the trailer hints that this is the story of a specially abled young girl living in a hill station in India.

While the usual crop of actors and celebrities will grace this year’s red carpet (devoid of infinite trails and nudity), the Cannes Film Festival is eventually a celebration of the best of cinema.

77th Cannes Film FestivalA Night of Knowing NothingAll We Imagine as LightIndian cinemaNews BriefWeb Exclusive