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ShareMumbai: There's a flutter in Mumbai as the heads of the Cannes Film Festival - general delegate Thierry Fremaux and director, film department, Christian Jeune - are in town. Fremaux and Jeune are here to meet people from the Indian film industry and to watch films.
Fremaux is the visionary uberboss of the Cannes film festival, after its president Gilles
Jacob, while Christian Jeune is the picky but affable India veteran, more closely involved with hands-on film selection. Jeune will proceed to the International Film Festival of India in Goa, where he is associated with the NFDC's Film Bazaar.
The film industry notables they are meeting here include director Sanjay Leela Bhansali (whose Devdas went to Cannes in 2002), Aamir Khan and Sunil Doshi. "The Cannes film festival is very ready for the other side of Indian cinema," says Fremaux. "We were on the sets of Sanjay Bhansali's film [Guzaarish] and it was very impressive. We had the same feeling as we would on the sets of a film by [Martin] Scorsese or [Bertrand] Tavernier - it's the same job. It was very dangerous for us to select Sanjay's Devdas, because the audience could say 'We are not in Cannes to see this kind of film.' But Christian and I proposed that it is as good as a Hollywood mainstream film. It was a first step and we don't want it to be the last."
Filmmakers worldwide grapple with what the Cannes festival is looking for when selecting films. "We look for films giving news from old filmmakers, showing the modernity of a certain cinema, or films that open the doors to their culture," says Fremaux (decode that, all you industry CEOs!).
Although Indian films have been selected at Cannes for over 50 years, we have not made it to the Competition section for about 15 years. Fremaux admits, "I don't know why. Auteur cinema is not in great shape. We protect auteurs, but often, they are disconnected. We went too far with auteur films, while commercial films have some great artistes too. I'd love to see a comedy, or a great montage film from India like Hollywood's That's Entertainment - I'd take it right away." We promise to send him a DVD of Farah Khan's Om Shanti Om as hors d'oeuvres.
Meenakshi Shedde is a curator for international film festivals worldwide and writes regularly for Cahiers du Cinema.
