...and the award goes to !

The Cannes Film Festival is coming to an end today. Cannes ( pronounced as /ˈkæn/  or Can ) has been a  regular gathering of film-makers, connoisseurs and  internationally acclaimed film personalities on the French Riviera. The Cannes Awards are one of the most respected film awards of the world. While the red carpet and curtain raisers have been prominently featuring Indian film personalities, the essence of Cannes are its awards.

There are many categories of awards at Cannes. The Golden Palm is their most coveted award but there are a bevy of awards to compete for, both by established film artistes as well as debutants for feature films as well as documentaries and short films.

  Though Hindi films are made primarily for commercial profits, there have been quite a few Hindi films to have made their mark in International awards. With a host of parallel cinema directors in India over the years, one expects that the   likes of Satyjit Ray, Kumar Shahani, Shyam Benegal, Mrinal Sen, Govind Nihalani and  Mira Nair would be in the list of winners.

Ironically, year after year, we find mainstream Bollywood stars hogging the limelight. The true actors who work in films which deserve a place at Cannes and other such festivals are relegated to sidelines. Such is the unfairness of life, perhaps !
So, let us find out the Indian Films to have made a mark at Cannes over the years and see if there are pleasant  surprises in store for us. This year, however, except for the short film Afternoon Clouds by FTII student  Payal Kapadia was the only entry from India.

But there have been better times in the past for Indian films at  Cannes..

Let's begin at the beginning. 

Year 1946 and a young film maker Chetan Anand, going against the tide of regular style of cinema, made a film called Neecha Nagar. The film, based on a story by Hayatullah Ansari was said to be inspired by Maxim Gorky's novel The Lower Depths. It was a pioneering effort in social realism and laid the foundation of parallel cinema in India. The film was shot with innovation , keeping the camera angles such that the deprived protagonists of that part of the town called Neecha Nagar would appear to be short-statured, a reflection of their position vis a vis the rich Ooncha Nagar residents.


Neecha Nagar was sent to the second edition of Cannes, held after six years, post-Second World War  and it won the  Golden Palm ( known as Palme d'Or )in the Festival, the first and only Hindi film to achieve the honour, even though it did not get a release in India.

In 1951, V.Shantaram had made a film in Marathi called Amar Bhoopali. The film was a biographical account of musician Honaji Bala. Bala was best known for popularising Lavani dance and his rise to fame coincided with the Marathas getting defeated by the British. 
The film was nominated for Grand Prize in Cannes festival, which eluded the film. However, the film was awarded for Excellence in Sound Recording.

Bimal Roy was a film-maker who knew the ground reality like no one else. So when he made Do Beegha Zameen, based on  the realism in the film was striking. The acting prowess of Balraj sahni, the music of Salil Chaudhary and the direction of Roy made the film a classic. It paved the way for neo-realism in Indian films. The film won Prix Internationale, a respected award in the 1954 edition of Cannes. 

The first film of Satyajit Ray's Apu's triology was Apur Sansar ( 1954). The film tells the story of a young boy who lives with his family and the joys and travails  of living in rural Bengal. The film was considered a classic and won wide critical acclaim. In Cannes Film festival, Ray's masterpiece was awarded Best Human Document.

The 50s were, indeed,  the Golden Era in Hindi films, in terms of both content and style of films being made. While the mainstream cinema had their blockbusters, there were attempts to fuse art and commerce, with melodious compositions punctuating the narrative.

In 1955, Bimal Roy's Biraj Bahu, based on Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya's novel of the same name, was screened in competition. The second Hindi film to be screened was Raj Kapoor's  Boot Polish. For this film, Baby Naaz received a Special Distinction Award for her charismatic performance.It is a fact that Raj Kapoor had visited 12 schools in Bombay in order to search for a suitable child actor, before zeroing on Baby Naaz !

 Khwaja Ahmed Abbas had produced a film called Pardesi in 1957. This was the first  Indo-Russian venture , based on the travelogue of Russian Afanasy Nikitin to India and his falling in love with an Indian girl.

 Satyajit Rays's Parash Pathar ( a 1958 comedy-fantasy film centered on a middle-class clerk who accidentally discovers a stone that can turn other objects into gold ) was also an entry in Cannes.Bimal Roy's Sujata, released in 1959 explored the situation of caste in India through the story of a girl who is considered an out-caste. The film was entered in the 1960 festival at Cannes.

The sixties and seventies were the barren years for Indian cinema at Cannes. The films being made were more of the escapist stuff, with lot of songs and dance routines and western influence getting more and more pronounced in music being in films.However, there were screenings of a few  Indian  films  in the competition at the festival, without winning any award.

India foremost art film director Satyajit Ray had another go at the festival, with his  Devi(1960), about a housewife who is believed to be an incarnation of Goddess Kali !

Moni Bhattachajee's  Mujhe Jeene Do ( 1963) was a close-to-reality dacoit saga ( check out the blog about Stockholm Syndrome at http://amitabhn-randomthinking.blogspot.in/2017/05/blog-post_19.html) was screened at Cannes, but without a mention in the list of awardees.

Despite the parallel cinema in full bloom in the 70s in India, only three Indian films could make the grade at Cannes in the 70s, regrettably. The film makers of that era were actually struggling on many fronts. Censorship has always been an issue with those who have wanted to speak out their mind. Made on   shoe-string budgets and devoid of stars, these films failed to get audiences in theatres. Finally, the  procedures to send entries in International Film Festivals were also plagued with red-tape in the 70s with a big part of the decade being affected by War, Unrest, Emergency and lack of political stability.

One of the films in 70s to get to Cannes was  M S Sathyu's Garam Hawa ( 1973),which dealt with the dilemma of a family in the times of Partition.The film details the slow disintegration of his family, and is one of the most poignant films made on India's partition.  It remains one of the few serious films dealing with the post-Partition plight of Muslims in India. 

The second film was  Shyam Benegal's Nishant (1975). This film focussed on the powers of rural elite and the sexual exploitation of women.The film was selected to compete for the Golden palm, but could not get the award.  

The third film was Mrinal Sen's Bangla masterpiece Ek Din Pratidin (1979). This is a  story of a   girl who is the only bread-winner of a middle-class family and how the family deals with the situation of her failing to return from work, one day.

The luck turned in our favour the 80s, after a ten year drought. many art cinema icons deserted the movement for greener commercial pastures ( Naseeruddin Shah and Smita Patil being the main culprits) and the new-age cinema started to move towards it inevitable end. However, out of the dying embers, new film-makers emerged and got their due in front of the world !
Two films made their presence felt in the festival in 1988.

 Gautam Ghose's Antarjali Jatra was  screened under Un Certain Regard ( meaning Another Point of View). The film depicts the institution of Kuleen Brahmin polygamy of 19th Century Bengal.

The icing on the cake was an award, not in one but in two categories for the same film !
Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay! made history of sorts by winning in the categories  Camera d'Or and the Audience Prize.The film chronicles the day-to-day life of children living on the streets of Bombay ( now Mumbai).  Most of the young actors who appeared in Salaam Bombay! were actual street children. They received dramatic training at a special workshop in Bombay before they appeared in the film. The film remains one the most remarkable film made in the country.

The next year, while   Satyajit Ray's Ganashatru ( based on Isben's Enemy of the people) was screened out of competition,  Shaji N Karun's Malayalam film Piravi (based on the real-life incident of Rajan, an engineering student who died as a result of torture by police during Emergency and how his father deals with the trauma) won a Special Mention for Camera d'Or.

The change in the Indian cinema scene in 90s was evident as a multi-lingual manifestation of the spirit of being Indian. Good cinema started to move away from Hindi film -Mumbai Industry nexus and the films made in regional languages made heads to turn. Out of the many Indian films getting special mentions at Cannes, only one of them was in Hindi,

The regional films broke through not only national but international boundaries to project India as truly a multi-cultural confederation that it is.

Look at the range of topics on which the film-makers of the country were devoting their craft to, getting international applause !

In 1991, a film from the North East made a rare appearance in Un Certain Regard - Manipuri director Aribam Syam Sharma's Ishanou ( The Chosen One). The film is about a gentle , loving housewife becoming a violent woman with wild visions.

Indian films continued to be screened at Cannes.  In 1994, Shaji N Karun, whose earlier film Piravi had got acclaim , came up with Swaham, about a family who has to deal with tragedies, one after other.

 Sandeep Ray's Uttoran, which showed the divide between the urban and rural sensibilities, was exhibited  under Un Certain Regard.

 Regional cinema continued to make international forays the next year with Oriya film Indradhanura Chhai ( showing the conflicts of three women of different generations) ,competed for the Grand Prize.
The solitary Hindi film to be screened at Cannes ( in 1997)  was  Goutam Ghose's Gudia (story of a simple ventriloquist)   in the Un Certain Regard section, his second film to achieve the distinction.

In 1999, Shaji N Karun  came up with the third film to be screened at Cannes, a great accomplishment. Vanaprastham ( the tale of a lower-caste Kathakali  artist during the 1940s era in Travancore)  competed in Un Certain Regard.However, the film which won a Cannes award in the 90s was  the 1999 Murali Nair's film  Marana Simhasanam, which won the Camera d'Or. The film is a poignant story of a petty thief, charged for murder instead and his inability to prevent capital punishment by   electric chair , the latest technology ! 

This was the last time an Indian film has won an award at Cannes...


In the last decade and a half , many Indian films have been screened at Cannes, in various categories. These include Murali Nair's Arimpara , Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan, ,  Ashim Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely , Anurag Kashyap's two part Gangs Of Wasseypur and   Vasan Bala's Peddlers.  

The Lunchbox was screened as part of International Critics' Week and Satyajit Ray's Charulata was part of the Cannes Classics line up. Other films include Kanu Behl's Titli , Chauthi Koot, Masaan, Memories and my mother and Raman Raghav 2.0  

It may take another year for an Indian film to get the top award at Cannes. However, the vast pool of talent in Indian cinema gives us hope that good cinema will get appreciation, once it reaches the international arena and competes with the best in the world.

Leaving you with the desire to see some of the films mentioned above and glimpses from The Lunchbox