A hotline for victims and witnesses of sexual assault during the festival. A complete absence of the streaming company Netflix, after it screened two films last year and refused to release any in French theatres. And no red-carpet selfies. These are some of latest headlines in the run up to the 2018 iteration of Festival de Cannes, the annual cine soiree at the French Riviera, which has seen the birth of a thousand cinema greats since 1946.
But who are the Indian noise-makers at this year's Cannes to be held from 8 to 19 May?
The only Indian film in the Un Certain Regard segment of the prestigious 71st Cannes Film Festival is Nandita Das' biographical drama Manto, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the eponymous Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. The film looks at the life and career of the legendary short story writer after Partition. Rasika Dugal plays Safia, Manto’s wife and Rajshri Deshpande essays Ismat Chughtai. Paresh Rawal and Rishi Kapoor will also be seen in the film. Usually 20 films are selected in the Un Certain category which seeks to showcase interesting stories in unconventional formats. There is only one winner in this category, unlike the more competitive and sought-after Palme d’Or. Gautam Ghose’s Antarjali Yatra (1987), Aribam Syam Sharma’s Ishanou (1990), Shaji N Karun’s Swaham (1994), Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely (2012) and Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan (2015) were the previous Indian contenders in the Un Certain category where Murali Nair’s Marana Simhasanam won a prize in 1999.
In the parallel section, Rohena Gera's Sir will get its world premiere at International Critics’ Week. The Critics' Week is a non-competitive, sidebar section dedicated to showing a filmmaker's first or second feature film and is driven towards discovering new talent. Masters like Wong Kar-wai and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu first received worldwide attention here. In Gera's Sir, starring Tillotama Shome, a domestic worker in an apartment complex in Mumbai falls for the son of her upper-class employers. Charles Tesson, artistic director of the Critics' Week has described Sir as "a subtle and very moving reflection on the capacity of love to upset the status quo."
Tamil superstar Dhanush—who is making is Hollywood debut with the Indo-French comedy-adventure The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir—will also be present at the Festival to create the requisite buzz in the lead up to the French release of the film on May 30. Set in Mumbai, Paris, the Falklands, Spain, Rome and Libya, the film is an adaptation of the French novel, The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped in an Ikea Wardrobe.
The India Pavilion, organised by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting at the Cannes Film Market, the business arm of the Cannes Festival, will see a robust representation of Marathi cinema. Three Marathi films—Dhondiba Balu Karande's Palashichi PT, Deepak Gawade’s Idak (Goat) and Manouj Kadaamh’s Kshitij (Horizon) will seek to pique the interest of distributors and producers in one of the world's biggest film markets.
Besides, with Bollywood divas Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Deepika Padukone and Kangana Ranaut set to walk the red carpet this year, there is plenty of desi presence at this year's Cannes.