00:00When we think about the Cannes Film Festival, we think about glamour, the red carpet and
00:05stars flooding the French Riviera.
00:07Some Indian names have even become regulars at the festival.
00:10Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sonam Kapoor, Mallika Sharad and Deepika Padukone are among the
00:16few.
00:17Deepika was also the most recent Indian to be on the festival's jury back in 2022.
00:21And there will come a day I truly believe where India won't have to be at Cannes, Cannes
00:25will be in India.
00:26But India's history at Cannes goes all the way back to three independents.
00:31In 1946, Chetan Anand's Meecha Nagar became the first Indian film to gain recognition
00:37at Cannes when it won the coveted Palme d'Or prize.
00:41It was the story of an autocratic mayor who ignored his villagers' plight during an epidemic
00:46brought on by sewage.
00:47A decade later, Satyajit Ray's directorial debut Pothir Pachali, which was also the first
00:52film in Ray's Apu Trilogy, won the Best Human Document award.
00:57It was in 1982 when filmmaker Mrinal Sen became an international jury member at the festival.
01:03Back home, Sen had established himself as a leader in Indian parallel cinema.
01:08And the following year, in 1983, his film Kharaj won the jury prize at Cannes.
01:14The film was a commentary on child labour told through the story of the child, Palan.
01:19Five years later, Meera Nair's first feature film, Salaam Bombay, won two awards at the
01:24festival.
01:25It won the Camera d'Or, or the Golden Camera, as well as the Audience Award.
01:30In 1990, another Indian was part of the Cannes jury.
01:33It was Nair.
01:34In 1997, Gautam Ghosh's Gudiya was screened in the Uncertain Regard category.
01:40And the following year, Asif Kapadia's short film The Sheep Thief won a Cine Foundation
01:46award.
01:47It was the Malayalam film Marana Simhasanam, which portrayed the life of a seasonal labourer
01:52who was accused of a murder that took place many years ago.
01:56The film won the Golden Camera award in 1999.
01:59But this was also around the time when some critics felt that the films that did well
02:04at international festivals like Cannes always portrayed India as a poor country.
02:10This wasn't a unanimous opinion, though.
02:13Critics argued that cinema should be allowed freedom of expression and that films probably
02:17resonated because they were truthful.
02:20In the year 2000, Arundhati Roy was invited to join the jury at Cannes.
02:24Two years later, Manish Shah's A Very Very Silent Film won the jury prize and Sanjay
02:29Leela Bansali's Devdas was screened at the festival.
02:33In 2003, Aishwarya, who was no stranger to the festival's red carpet, attended as a jury
02:38member.
02:39The first Tamil film to be screened at Cannes was Veyil.
02:42In 2006 and three years later, in 2009, veteran actor Sharmila Tagore joined the international
02:48jury.
02:49This was decades after her film Devi had screened at the festival in 1962.
02:54Filmmaker Shekhar Kapoor was also a jury member in 2010.
02:59Several other Indian films were screened at the festival over the next decade.
03:09In 2013, Amitabh Bachchan inaugurated the festival as part of the Great Gatsby team,
03:20while Vidya Balan and Nandita Das were on the jury.
03:24Not just that, The Lunchbox was part of International Critics Week and Ray's Charulota was part
03:30of the Cannes Classics line-up.
03:32In 2021, Payal Kapadia's A Night of Knowing Nothing won the Golden Eye for Best Documentary
03:39The following year, India was a country of honour at the festival, with several celebrities
03:45and films making an appearance.
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