Indian cinema, a ‘non entity’ at Cannes! : Bollywood News : ApunKaChoice.Com


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Indian cinema, a ‘non entity’ at Cannes!
20th May 2005 12.10 IST
By Agencies

Indian actors may be "almost everywhere" at this year's Cannes Film Festival but for the Indian films, the situation is the reverse! This time around, the prestigious Cannes festival has recognized Indian actors while ignoring Indian Cinema.

For, despite Nandita Das being chosen as part of the jury, Aishwarya Rai given the honor to utter the sentence to open this year's festival and 'sexy siren' Mallika Sherawat "walking the red carpet leading to the Palais", what makes Indian cinema at the 58th Cannes Film festival seem almost a 'non entity' is the absence of a single film-entry from India in any official Selection, even as many films from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and even Sri Lanka have been included in the official screenings.

The lacunae due to the absence of Indian films in any official Selection lacuna has, however, been somewhat made up due to the screening of several Indian films in the Market section.

Cannes is the biggest film-market in the world, with a number of preview theatres where films are screened by intending sellers. This year, a number of Indian filmmakers and distributors have turned up looking for buyers.

The films already screened/to be shown in the Marche (the Market section), or elsewhere privately, include Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Black , Subhash Ghai's Kisna (in its shorter, English version), and Delhi-based producer Bobby Bedi's two latest movies, The Rising (starring Aamir Khan ) and "American Daylight". The last-named film, which revolves around a girl employed in a Delhi call-centre, made its debut at the Goa IFFI last December but has yet to be commercially released.

On Tuesday, producer Akbar Khan, who is the younger brother of Feroze Khan and Sanjay Khan , screened his much-awaited "Taj Mahal- an Eternal Love Story". The film is mounted on a mega scale, and Akbar Khan hopes to release it in India in early August.

Notwithstanding the euphoria over the market screenings of the above films, it is notable that in most of the screenings, the audience comprised mainly Indians.