In 2015, independent filmmaker Neeraj Ghaywan impressed the jury of the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard category with a compelling story of the corpse-burners of Varanasi, winning its nod for a special Promising Future Prize. Masaan, Mumbai-based Ghaywan’s debut film, also won the International Critics’ Prize in Cannes, capping a remarkable achievement for a first film from India at the high table of world cinema.
Exactly a decade later, Ghaywan is back in the French Riviera, to present his sophomore feature, Homebound, in the same Un Certain Regard category that celebrates fresh voices in cinema around the world. The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which begins on May 13, has drawn the red carpet to independent filmmakers from India and its neighbourhood this year.
Homebound, which stars A Suitable Boy actor Ishaan Khatter and Vishal Jethwa, who has scorched the small screen in recent years with powerful performances in historical dramas, and Janhvi Kapoor, is joined at the Croisette by a film school production from the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata. A Doll Made Up of Clay, a 24-minute SRFTI production directed by Kokob Gebrehaweria Tesfay, an international student at the institute, is part of La Cinef, a competitive section for film schools across the world.
Set for success
The two-film Indian participation in the Cannes official selection follows a phenomenal 2024 when Mumbai-born Payal Kapadia ended Indian cinema’s long absence from the festival’s prestigious competition section, returning with the Grand Prix, the second-highest honour in Cannes, for her own sophomore feature, All We Imagine As Light. India earned another award last year, in La Cinef, with the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune entry Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know by Chidananda S Naik winning the top prize, and another Indian filmmaker, Meerut-born Mansi Maheshwari, bagging the third prize in the same competition for the UK’s National Film and Television School animated short film, Bunnyhood. Kolkata-based Anasuya Sengupta won the Best Actress award for her powerful portrayal of a sex worker in India in The Shameless directed by Bulgarian filmmaker Konstantin Bojanov, an official selection in Un Certain Regard.
A year later, hopes are high for Indian cinema once again with a representation that reflects the diversity of the largest film-making country in the world. “The idea for A Doll Made Up of Clay originated from a short documentary I made about African footballers living in India,” says Tesfay, an Ethiopian national studying direction and script writing at SRFTI. “As an African filmmaker, this story is very close to my heart. It draws inspiration from the real-life experiences of young African footballers—a story of hope, identity, transformation, and survival,” he adds. Tesfay’s short film, A Doll Made Up of Clay, deals with the struggles of African footballers in India. “There are many African players in the professional league in India who earn good income and get the best medical facilities. But there are many more from the continent who play in the lowly seven-a-side tournaments for meagre salaries. They struggle to survive and send money to their families back home,” says Tesfay, who was aided in the film production by a group of Indian students.
Daring to experiment
Closer to Kolkata, Bangladeshi cinema is on a celebratory mode following the selection of one of its films for the first time ever in the Cannes festival’s short film competition. Ali directed by Adnan Al Rajeev is among 11 short films from around the world selected to the competition, which awards a Palme d’Or to the winner. Shot in a village in the picturesque Sylhet region famous for its rivers and mountains stretching to Meghalaya, Ali tells the story of the relationship between a teenager and his mother. “It is an absurd drama set in a village that could be anywhere in the world,” explains Rajeev, who studied at the St Augustine’s School in Kurseong and Rockvale Academy in Kalimpong before returning to Bangladesh to work with celebrated filmmaker Mostafa Sarwar Farooki in 2009. “I can speak Nepali fluently,” he laughs. “We have a strong culture in our subcontinent. It is unique and rooted in a visual language,” adds Rajeev.
Farther in Hyderabad in Pakistan’s Sindh province, a short film about the last heir of a tribe recollecting his forgotten ancestral traditions, continues the subcontinent’s experiment with filmmaking. Directed by Pakistani visual artist and filmmaker Aleem Bukhari, Karmash is the first Pakistani short film ever to be selected to the Cannes parallel programme, the Directors’ Fortnight. “It is an experimental horror film dealing with a fictitious tribe,” says Bukhari about the short film produced by a collective of six friends, including himself, in Hyderabad. “Karmash represents the spirit of grassroots creativity,” he adds. It is only the third Pakistani film ever in Director’s Fortnight, after two feature films, The Blood of Hussain by Jamil Dehlavi in 1980 and In Flames by Zarrar Kahn two years ago.
The subcontinent is also represented by a film from Sri Lanka. Gehenu Lamai (The Girls), a newly-restored 4K version of the 1978 film by Sri Lanka’s first female filmmaker Sumitra Peries, is part of the Cannes Classics. The film was restored by the Film Heritage Foundation created by Mumbai-based filmmaker and film conservationist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur in association with the Lester James Peries and Sumitra Peries Foundation. A Film Heritage Foundation-restored Indian film, Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri (1970), is also part of the Cannes Classics this year.
Faizal Khan is a freelancer.