Diary of a first-timer at Cannes 2016: A rousing applause for Anurag Kashyap's 'Raman Raghav 2.0'

May 15

Cannes is also about chance encounters. I run into Corinne Jayaweera while having lunch at the cafeteria in the market. ‘I am Corinne, your name?’ she asks and the conversation begins. She does most of the talking and her enthusiasm is charming. “I am a producer and have made a documentary called Spirit of Iris on a 94-year-old woman,' she says. “Actually, when I met this woman, Iris, and heard her story I thought this was a subject of a full-length feature film. But we do not have funds. So we made a documentary instead. I had no idea there were women pilots during Second World War till the time I met her. She is fascinating.”

Iris is an aeronautical teacher and flight instructor, who has taught many aerospace leaders and pilots over the past 60 years. She was in one of the earliest groups of women to ferry planes for the Air Transport Command in World War II and competed in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.

Corinne has lots of plans for the future. She has founded a company, Documented America, and wants to produce documentaries that will inspire people. More power to women like Corinne.

May 16

Anurag Kashyap receives a thumping applause after the screening of his film Raman Raghav 2.0. The film makes its appearance in the Director’s Fortnight at the festival. This is Anurag Kashyap's third time in this section after Gangs of Wasseypur and Ugly. They were also screened at the Cannes sidebar.

“Cannes loves this man,” says an Indian journalist who now lives in London. The theatre is packed and the director is present with his complete cast that includes Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, Amruta Subhash, Sobhita Dhuliwala, Anuschka Sawhney.

At the Q and A that followed after the film, Kashyap explains why he made this film on Raman Raghav, the serial killer in Mumbai who confessed to killing 41 people, mostly from the slums in the mid 1960s. He had an initial script of a film which needed a bigger budget. Hence, keeping the psychopath in mind, a new script was written which was set in today’s Mumbai and featured a duel between a killer Ramanna played by Nawazuddin and assistant commissioner of police Raghav played by Vicky Kaushal.

At the Q&A for Psycho Raman @Festival_Cannes. #Cannes2016 #NawazAtCannes pic.twitter.com/U1JAoBDHVx

— Nawazuddin Siddiqui (@Nawazuddin_S) May 16, 2016

Answering a question on morality Kashyap says, “Everybody’s idea of what is moral and what is immoral is different. Ramanna in the film has pure intentions when he murders while people generally kill for revenge or in the name of the religion.” Kashyap also says that his film has political connotations and that the present scenario in India is not something he could ignore.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui is getting rave reviews for his performance as the cold blooded murderer. “This was a difficult role to play because I could not imagine the psychology of this man. As I started preparing for this character I sometimes feared myself,” he says.

On the red carpet, it is the turn of the legendary Robert de Niro to shine with his co-stars Grace Hightower and Roberto Duran for the film Hands of Stone, directed by Jonathan Jakubowicz.

I am told there are people in Cannes who turn up at the Grand Lumiere theatre just to get a glimpse of the stars walking on the red carpet. For them this is what the festival is all about!