India’s performance at 77th Cannes Film Festival has been phenomenal with 2 filmmakers, an actress and a cinematographer won top awards at the world’s leading film festival. As one of the largest film producing Nation with a thriving Film industry, Indian Film makers have fetched huge accolades at his years’ Cannes.
For the first time in 30 years an Indian film, Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ which centers around the lives of two nurses, was nominated for the Palme d’or, the highest award in the festival. Kapadia’s film won the Grand Prix, the second position in the category. With this win Payal Kapadia, a FTII alumnus, becomes the first Indian to bag this prestigious award. This comes after 30 years when Shaji N Karun’s ‘Swaham’ competed for highest honour.
Payal’s film was granted official Indo-French co production status by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, under the signed Audio-Visual treaty between India and France. Permission for shooting of the film was also granted by the Ministry in Maharashtra (Ratnagiri and Mumbai). The film received Interim approval for 30% of the Qualifying Co-production expenditure under the Incentives Scheme of the Government of India for Official Co-production.
Film and Television Institute of India’s student Chidananda S Naik bagged the first prize in the La Cinef section for “SUNFLOWERS WERE THE FIRST ONES TO KNOW”, a 15-minute short film based on a Kannada folklore. This FTII film is a production of the FTII’s TV Wing’s One-year program where four students from different disciplines i.e. Direction, Electronic Cinematography, Editing, Sound worked together for one project as a year-end coordinated exercise. Before joining FTII in 2022, Chidanand S Naik was also selected as one of the 75 Creative Minds at 53rd International Film Festival of India (IFFI), an initiative of Ministry of I&B to recognize and support budding young artists in the field of Cinema. It is important to note that an India-born Mansi Maheshwari’s Bunnyhood, an animated film, bagged the third prize in the La Cinef Selection.
The Festival celebrated the work of world famous Director Shyam Benegal. After 48 years of its release in India Benegals’ Manthan, preserved at the National Film Archives of India (NFDC-NFAI under Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) and restored by the Film Heritage Foundation, was showcased at Cannes in the classic section.
