ndia’s limited presence at Cannes is especially troubling considering the strong showing it had made in the early years of the festival.
Thirty years after Malayalam filmmaker Shaji N Karun’s Swaham competed for the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival, an Indian film has once again made it to the competition section of the event. Come May, Payal Kapadia’s debut feature film All We Imagine As Light will be competing against entries from filmmakers such as Francis Ford Coppola, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paul Schrader and Paolo Sorrentino. While this is a moment of celebration for Indian cinema, it is also an opportunity to introspect on why it has taken three decades for a film from one of the world’s top film-producing nations to once again make it to this eminent stage.
India’s limited presence at Cannes is especially troubling considering the strong showing it had made in the early years of the festival. In 1946, during the first edition of Cannes as a full-fledged festival, the Grand Prix (as the Palme d’Or was known before 1955) went to Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar — the only Indian production to have been thus honoured till date. In subsequent decades, films by V Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, M S Sathyu, Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and Karun were nominated.
The 30-year interval between the nomination of Swaham and today points to a system that seems unable to nurture the kind of cinema in which commercial concerns do not overwhelm the demands of art. In a healthy ecosystem, alongside films that are conceived and produced keeping in mind the box office, there is also space for cinema as pure art. For the latter to grow in an increasingly competitive and dynamic global market, additional support, especially from the state, is needed, in the form of grants and subsidies.
Also badly needed is backing in promotion and distribution. A good model is the European Union’s Creative Europe MEDIA programme, which provides support to film professionals through training; helps with distribution of audiovisual content across Europe and the world; gives support to festivals, markets and theatres and helps set up audience development projects. The results are evident: Fourteen of the films supported by the programme were at Cannes last year, including Anatomy of a Fall which also won the Palme d’Or. Even something as simple as offering subtitling support — for example, the European Commission’s initiative to “increase circulation of European works”, including on global streaming platforms — can help connect filmmakers with new audiences.
In 2021, Kapadia’s A Night of Knowing Nothing won the prize for best documentary at Cannes, while Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes won it the following year. There is enough evidence of the wealth of film talent in India. Structured support would go a long way towards helping it meet the demands of art as well as commerce.
