India doesn't support 'Cannes-style' cinema, says Anurag Kashyap | Bollywood

Mumbai, India, did not have a moment at Cannes, said filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, emphasizing that independent filmmakers' victory at the European gala is theirs alone and that the government does not support this type of 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 received the Best Actress award in the Un Certain Regard section for The Shameless and Chidananda S. Naik, student at the FTII, won the prize for best short film in the La Cinef section for Sunflowers were the first to know.

I get very annoyed when people say “India@Cannes”. It’s a boost for many independent filmmakers, but their victory is theirs,” Kashyap told PTI in an interview here.

India didn't have a moment at Cannes, not a single one of these films is Indian. We must address this problem properly. India has stopped supporting such cinema, the kind of cinema that was present at Cannes, he said.

He said Kapadia's “All We Imagine as Light”, which was also the first Indian film in 30 years to feature in the main competition at Cannes, known for providing a platform for new voices, had received funding from a French society. The Malayalam-Hindi feature film, which won the second highest award at Cannes after the Palme d'Or, is an Indo-French co-production between France's Petit Chaos and India's Chalk and Cheese Films.

There were several films at Cannes with stories set in India or Indian talent at the helm, but most were co-productions with banners from other countries.

Indian-British filmmaker Sandhya Suri's Santosh and Karan Kandhari's Sister Midnight were financed by the UK, while Konstantin Bojanov's The Shameless was almost self-financed. However, Chidanand's 'Sunflowers…' is a production of the year-long TV Wing program of the Film and Television Institute of India.

India just likes to take credit for a lot of things, it doesn't support these films, and it doesn't even support releasing these films in theaters, Kashyap said.

In 2021, Kapadia had won an award at Cannes for the documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing but which is yet to be released in India.

“Let's stop taking credit for this. Let's stop this fake party… Even if the film comes out, no one will go see it in the cinema,” the 51-year-old said.

He also cited the example of Shaunak Sen's documentary 'All that Breathes', which won the Golden Eye award at Cannes 2022, which was not released on Indian screens and went straight to a streamer. Then there were independent films like 'Jaggi' and 'Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar' which won awards at festivals and would eventually find their way to streamers.

Kashyap also criticized the space given to influencers on the famous red carpet.

“This Indian obsession with Cannes… More than Cannes, it's the red carpet. It's on another level. I get even angrier when I hear these things… Geetanjali Rao got three awards at Cannes in 2003, I wrote an article about it, but it was not recognized, rarely anyone wrote about it here. There is no support system here.

Days after her victory, Kapadia, also an FTII graduate, wrote an open letter in which she advocated for a government fund for women filmmakers and underrepresented sections to foster independent cinema, while commending the Kerala government for launching a similar initiative.

Kashyap, whose films such as “Gangs of Wasseypur”, “Ugly” and “Kennedy” have been screened at Cannes over the years in sections such as Directors' Fortnight and Midnight Screens, said he was also surprised when former FTII president Gajendra Chauhan took credit for Kapadia's victory.

In 2015, Kapadia was among the students who protested against the appointment of 'Mahabharat' actor and BJP politician Chauhan as head of the FTII. Kapadia was among 35 students charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code for offenses relating to unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation and rioting.

The indictment was filed in 2016 and the next court hearing is scheduled for June 26, according to the defense attorney representing the students.

“The worst part is that the man who filed a complaint against her and sent some students to prison is the first man to take credit for her and say: I am proud to be the FTII. What is her name? Yudhishthir ji,” Gajendra Chauhan said, I am so proud that she was the student when I was head of it, you are the one who filed a complaint against her,” Kashyap added.

The director, who will be seen in an acting role in the web series 'Bad Cop', said that the Indian film sector mainly focuses on producing blockbuster films.

We've made a lot of independent films, I've seen how much support they get and don't get. At the end of the day, in India, everyone is there to do business. Nobody wants to do a good job, everyone wants to do a good job, he said.

Asked about small, critically acclaimed films like Joram and All India Rank which are not marketed well to reach the audience, Kashyap said such films cannot compete with the marketing of a big film.

“The pressure is also on small films; they can't spend much on film visibility. Making a small film visible around big films is very difficult. Plus, these films are unable to recover, and you don't get not good release timings, because good screening times are covered by big films, he said, praising the Southern film industry for setting marketing and ticket prices for big films. and short films.

Directed by Aditya Datt, Bad Cop stars Gulshan Devaiah as Karan, a fierce cop, trying to hunt down Kazbe, a villain more powerful and deadlier than him and simultaneously managing his personal relationships.

The action drama series will premiere on Disney Hotstar on June 21.

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