Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap says India has no standing at Cannes, asserting that the win of independent filmmakers at the European festival is theirs alone and that the government does not support such award-winning cinema.
India won an unprecedented three awards at the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival last month – Payal Kapadia became the first Indian director to win the Grand Prix for her film “All We Imagine As Light”, Anasuya Sengupta was awarded the Best Actress in Un Certain Regard for “The Shameless”, and FTII student Chidananda S. Naik won the Best Short Film award in the La Cinéfe section for “Sunflowers Were The First Ones To Know”.
“When somebody says ‘India @ Cannes’, I get very upset. It is a boost… a encouragement for a lot of independent filmmakers but their victory is their own,” Kashyap told PTI in an interview here.
Kolkata: Director Anurag Kashyap interacts with the media during the 29th Kolkata International Film Festival, Sunday, December 10, 2023 | Photo Credit: –
He said, “India had no importance in Cannes, not a single film among them was Indian. We should solve this issue the way it should be solved. India has stopped supporting the kind of cinema that was in Cannes.”
He said Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light”, the first film from India in 30 years to be included in the main competition at Cannes, known for giving a platform to new voices, had received funding from a French company. The Malayalam-Hindi feature, which won the second-highest prize after the Palme d’Or at Cannes, is an Indo-French co-production between France’s Petit Chaos and India’s Chalk & Cheese Films.
There were several films screened at Cannes that had stories either based in India or featured Indian talent in the lead, but most of them were co-produced with banners from other countries.
Indo-British filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s “Santosh” and Karan Kandhari’s “Sister Midnight” were funded by the UK, while Konstantin Bozhanov’s “The Shameless” was almost self-funded. However, Chidanand’s “Sunflower…” is a production of a year-long programme of the TV wing under the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).
“India likes to take credit for a lot of things, they don’t support these films, and they don’t even support these films being released in cinemas,” Kashyap said.
In 2021, Kapadia won an award at Cannes for the documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing”, but it is yet to be released in India.
“Stop taking credit for it. Let’s stop this fake celebration… Even if the film releases, no one will go to theatres to watch it,” the 51-year-old actor said.
He also gave the example of Shaunak Sen’s documentary “All That Breathes”, which won the Golden Eye Award at Cannes 2022, which did not release on Indian screens and went straight to streamers. Then there were independent films like “Jaggi” and “Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar” that won awards at festivals that will eventually reach streamers.
Kashyap also criticised the attention given to influencers on the famous red carpet.
“India is obsessed with Cannes… more than Cannes, it’s about the red carpet. It’s on another level. I get more angry when I hear these things… Gitanjali Rao got three awards at Cannes (for ‘Printed Rainbow’), I wrote an article on it but it didn’t get recognised, hardly anyone here wrote about it. There is no support system here.” A few days after her win, Kapadia, who is an FTII graduate, wrote an open letter in which she demanded a government fund for women filmmakers and under-represented sections to promote independent filmmaking, while also praising the Kerala government for starting a similar initiative.
Kashyap, whose films “Gangs of Wasseypur”, “Ugly” and “Kennedy” have screened in sections such as Directors’ Fortnight and Midnight Screenings at Cannes in the past few years, said he was even surprised when former FTII chairman Gajendra Chauhan took credit for Kapadia’s win.
In 2015, Kapadia was one of the students who protested the appointment of “Mahabharata” actor-BJP leader Chauhan as FTII chief. Kapadia was among 35 students who were charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for offences related to unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation and rioting.
According to the defence lawyer representing the students, the chargesheet was filed in 2016 and the next court hearing is scheduled for June 26.
Kashyap said, “The worst part is that the person who filed a case against her and sent some students to jail is the first person who took credit for her and said, ‘I am proud that I was the FTII (chairman).’ What’s his name? Yudhishthira ji (his ‘Mahabharata’ role), Gajendra Chauhan said, ‘I am very proud that she was a student when I was the principal.’ You are the one who filed a case against her.”
The director, who will be seen acting in the web series “Bad Cop”, said the Indian film industry mainly focuses on making blockbuster hit movies.
“We have made many independent films, I have seen how much support they get and how much they don’t. At the end of the day, everybody in India is out to do business. Nobody wants to do good work, everybody wants to do hit work (success),” he said.
When asked about smaller films like the critically acclaimed “Joram” and “All India Rank” not being marketed properly to reach out to the audience, Kashyap said such films cannot match the marketing of bigger films.
“The pressure is on smaller films as well; they cannot spend much on the visibility of the film. It is very difficult to make a small film visible among big films. Also, those films are unable to recover, you don’t get good show timings, because good show timings are covered by big films,” he said, praising the south film industry for deciding marketing and ticket pricing for both big budget and small films.
Directed by Aditya Dutt, ‘Bad Cop’ stars Gulshan Devaiah as Karan, a ruthless police officer who tries to chase down Kazbe (Kashyap), a more powerful and deadly villain than him while also handling his personal relationships.
The action-drama series will premiere on Disney+ Hotstar on June 21.
