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PostPosted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 12:54 am 
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http://www.musicindiaonline.com/n/m/main_page_news/268/

Cannes cold shoulders India
By HT
Apr 26, 2004, 11:19


Indian cinema will be conspicuous by its absence at the upcoming 57th Cannes Film Festival. None of the principal packages on view on the Boulevard de la Croisette between May 12 and 23 will feature any entry from the world's largest film industry.

Last year, the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes had Murali Nair's Arimpara, a film that left viewers completely cold, if not a trifle baffled over why it had been selected in the first place. The year before, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Devdas was accorded a special gala screening and two of the film's lead actors, Shahrukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai had walked down the red carpet in the company of the director.

But when the 57th Cannes Film Festival gets underway on May 12, Bollywood will have no official presence at the star-spangled 12-day event. A rather dated crossover film, Priya Ruth Paul's The Perfect Husband, will be screened twice in the Director's Fortnight. But then the Director's Fortnight is a section that has no more than parallel status in the Cannes Film Festival.

Playwright and actor Makarand Deshpande's debut film, Danav, based on a self-authored play, had been selected for the Director's Fortnight. But the Deshpande withdrew it when he realized that the quality of the 35 mm blow-up of the 16 mm film wasn't good enough to pass muster.

In the main official categories of the festival - the Competition, the Out of Competition screenings and Un Certain Regard - India has drawn a blank. A real measure of where Indian films currently stand vis-à-vis other Asian cinemas is provided by the fact that this year's Competition in Cannes will feature two films from South Korea and one each from China, Japan and Thailand.

In all, 18 films will figure in the Competition. The Competition film from China, 2046, directed by Hong Kong's Wong Kar-wai, is expected to generate the sort of excitement that the director's In the Mood for Love did in 2000.

Iran, too, is missing from the 2004 Cannes Competition section - last year, the country had Samira Makhmalbaf's well received At Five in the Afternoon vying for the top awards - but the acclaimed Iranian master Abbas Kiorastami has a film each in the Out of Competition section, which primarily comprises films that do not make it to the main Competition but are important enough in terms of content and form to be screened on the Croisette, and Un Certain Regard.

Among the films screening Out of Competition in Cannes this year will be Pedro Almodovar's La Mala Educacion, Zhang Yimou's Flying Daggers, Kiorastami's Five, Jean-Luc Godard's Notre Musique and Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill-Vol. 2. The maverick Hollywood director has been named chairman of the official jury of the 57th Cannes Film Festival.

Between 2000 and 2003, as many as three Indians had been appointed to the Cannes jury - writer and activist Arundhati Roy, filmmaker Murali Nair and, most famously, Aishwarya Rai. While Aishwarya might put in an appearance this year as well, this time around she will be doing so only in her capacity as L'Oreal's brand ambassador.

The growing global interest in conventional Bollywood films seems to have done little to reverse the dwindling fortunes of Indian cinema on the festival circuit, which constitutes a fair barometer of the tastes and thinking of film-lovers the world over.

The last time an Indian feature film was in competition in Cannes was exactly a decade ago when Shaji N. Karun's Swaham made the cut. It is perhaps significant that this was roughly around the time when the kitschy and exotic Bollywood idiom began to acquire global currency.

Films like Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, released in the mid 1990s, took the international spotlight away from Indian films of genuine artistic merit. As a result, cinema from the subcontinent began to find the gates being slammed hard on them in market-driven festivals like the one in Cannes.

Between 1974 and 1986, a span of 13 years, six Indian films - M.S. Sathyu's Garam Hawa, Shyam Benegal's Nishant, Mrinal Sen's Ek Din Pratidin, Kharij and Genesis and Satyajit Ray's Ghare Baire - competed in Cannes.

Kharij even won the Prix de Jury in 1983. While two Indian first features - Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (winner of the Camera d'Or) and Shaji N. Karun's Piravi (recipient of an honourable mention) - made a mark in Cannes in the late 1980s, it has been a downhill slide for Indian cinema ever since.

The bigger Bollywood has got, the more Indian cinema has shrunk as a creative force. Ray is gone, Sathyu hasn't made a film for years, Benegal has slowed down considerably and Mrinal Sen has gone into virtual semi-retirement. The filmmakers have given way to packaging artists and hardsell experts. Where are the flag-bearers of the kind of cinema of substance that can communicate with the world on an equal footing?

Films that propagate some quirky, endearingly lowbrow and defiantly inauthentic idiom as the face of Indian cinema can take us only this far and no further. Are the Shekhar Kapurs and Rituparno Ghoshs of the world listening? It is time for men of their ilk to once again raise the pennant of revolt against pap and piffle. Cannes they?


© Copyright 2004 by MusicIndiaOnLine.com


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 27, 2004 11:15 pm 
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They're screening but not competing.


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PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2004 8:50 pm 
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DragunR2 wrote:
Playwright and actor Makarand Deshpande's debut film, Danav, based on a self-authored play, had been selected for the Director's Fortnight. But the Deshpande withdrew it when he realized that the quality of the 35 mm blow-up of the 16 mm film wasn't good enough to pass muster.


That explains the poor quality of the trailer of this movie on the MR & MRS IYER dvd. BTW has anyone seen this flick? The DVD has been out it looks like for sometime now !


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PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2004 9:22 pm 
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Aarkayne wrote:
DragunR2 wrote:
Playwright and actor Makarand Deshpande's debut film, Danav, based on a self-authored play, had been selected for the Director's Fortnight. But the Deshpande withdrew it when he realized that the quality of the 35 mm blow-up of the 16 mm film wasn't good enough to pass muster.


That explains the poor quality of the trailer of this movie on the MR & MRS IYER dvd.


Monsoon Wedding too was blown up to 35 mm print from the original 16mm shoot.

Rana


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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 3:13 pm 
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rana wrote:
Aarkayne wrote:
DragunR2 wrote:
Playwright and actor Makarand Deshpande's debut film, Danav, based on a self-authored play, had been selected for the Director's Fortnight. But the Deshpande withdrew it when he realized that the quality of the 35 mm blow-up of the 16 mm film wasn't good enough to pass muster.


That explains the poor quality of the trailer of this movie on the MR & MRS IYER dvd.


Monsoon Wedding too was blown up to 35 mm print from the original 16mm shoot.

Rana


In which case I wonder why Deshpande thought it would not be good enough to pass muster.....did he not know there was a precedence already? Strange indeed ! The 16mm print must be really poor quality is what I think.


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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 5:03 pm 
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Maybe Indian labs are not so good at 16-35 blowup or he was expecting something better from the process?


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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 5:13 pm 
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my apologies, indian labs r good for nothing :evil:


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PostPosted: Sat May 08, 2004 5:19 pm 
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'Cannes cold shoulders India'

Good! I'm glad Cannes is giving them the cold shoulder. They deserve it after producing so many mediocre films! They have been given a chance and they blew it! :evil:


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