By Payal Mehta
New Delhi [India], May 4 (ANI): At a time when India is commemorating its 75th year of Independence by launching the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, India and France are also celebrating 75 years of their association.
Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Anurag Singh Thakur has announced that India will be the official ‘Country of Honour’ at the upcoming Marche’ Du Film, which is organized alongside the Cannes Film Festival, in France. This is the first year that the festival has done so and this special focus will continue annually with different nations in the spotlight at future editions.
Among the highlights of this year’s festival will be the world premiere of R Madhavan’s film ‘Rocketry: The Nambi Effect’, a biographical drama film based on the life of Nambi Narayanan, a former scientist and aerospace engineer of the Indian Space Research Organisation who was falsely accused of espionage. Produced by Madhavan, the movie will be showcased on May 19.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Paris and meeting with President Macron takes even more significance in this context. It is in this significant diplomatic backdrop that India has been chosen as the ‘Country of Honour,” said Thakur.
At the festival, India will be establishing an Indian pavilion that will provide a platform and a forum for the world to connect with India through its films, culture and heritage. This year the pavilion’s theme will be ‘India- The content hub of the World’.
“This year the pavilion carries the theme ‘India the Content Hub of the World’. It would be inaugurated on the morning of May 18, 2022. It will showcase Indian cinema across linguistic, cultural, and regional diversities of the country and will serve as a networking platform for delegates from across the global community, aiming to establish international partnerships in film shooting, distribution, production, script development, technology, promoting film sales and syndication, Thakur added further.
The opening night of Marche Du Films, being organised at the Majestic Beach will focus on India, its cinema, its culture and heritage. This night would be elucidated by special performances from Indian Choir bands along with Folk Music and Fireworks. The cuisine served would be Indian as well as French.
With India being the ‘Country of Honour’, five new start-ups will be given an opportunity to pitch to the Audio-Visual Industry. Ten professionals will participate in Animation Day.
India has also been given an opportunity to pitch five selected movies at the ‘Goes to Cannes Section’. These movies are part of the WIP lab under the Film Bazaar:
‘Baghjan’ by Jaicheng Zxai Dohutia – Assamese, Moran
‘Bailadila’ by Shailendra Sahu – Hindi, Chhattisgarhi
‘Ek Jagah Apni (A Space of Our Own)’ by Ektara Collective – Hindi
‘Follower’ by Harshad Nalawade – Marathi, Kannada, Hindi
‘Shivamma’ by Jai Shankar – Kannada
Further, a cinema hall called the Olympia Screen will be dedicated to India on May 22, 2022, for screening ‘Unreleased Movies’. There are 5 Movies which have been selected under this category.
A remastered Satyajit Ray classic, ‘Pratidwandi’, will be screened at the Cannes Classic section. This is to mark the filmmaker’s centenary celebration.
This year’s Cannes Film Festival will take place between May 17 to May 26 and the organisers will be axing COVID-19 curbs ahead of its 75th edition. They won’t be testing attendees, as it did last year, and will not institute a mask mandate. (ANI)