Cannes: Cinema Paradiso
Exhausted! That is what I am. I have been to film festivals and film festivals, and when I got the opportunity to come for the first time to Cannes, I knew it was the biggest one, but had never imagined it would be so big. May be, that’s what everyone finds out the first time here. And if you are a journalist who also has to write for his newspaper (because the newspaper has sent me to cover the festival for it), it is even harder. Harder because you are forced to forego a number of films while chasing stories. Stories on films, stories from the market, stories relating to India (that’s a real tough task, as there are no films from India in the festival this year too – so you have to run around the huge market, and keep your eyes and ears open for whatever India-related activities might be happening outside the India pavilion or the stalls of Indian companies, like it happened this time with Fortissimo Films acquiring Dev Benegal’s ‘Road, Movie’).
The whole venue is so vast in terms of square kms that I am sure I have ended up walking at least 5-6 km everyday here without knowing that. Being in the media gives you the chance to watch films before anyone else does, because here media screenings are absolutely separate and much in advance of the Red Carpet of other official screenings. But you have to reach the theatre at least at 8 to catch the 8:30 am press screening, and then it continuese till at least 1 am. So, after 10 days, you are completely exhausted. How I wish I could come here one day and just be a delegate watching film after film after film, without bothering about filing reports or having to do any business deals (those in the market hardly have any time to move out of their stalls, and would be lucky if they can catch a film or two after the business meetings and networking parties till late at night).
Talking of parties, the best one was this year thrown by our own Vijay Mallya, at his villa at the Island St Marguerette (hope I have spelt that correctly). Even Marche du Film (Film Market) executive director – the boss of the film market – Jerome Paillard told me that, so it has to be the biggest one (since he obviously gets invited all the big ones). The party at the private Villa Paradisiaque of S P Hinduja was also a rocking affair, with Sir Ben Kingsley in attendance (he is acting in Teen Patti, being produced by Ambika Hinduja, and costarring Amitabh Bachchan).
Was able to catch just 2-3 films every day…and that’s quite a shame, I know. I could not even catch a single film in the Directors’ Fortnight and Critics Week sections (they are parallel sections, outside the official sections), screened at venues at a little distance away, as I chose to concentrate on Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, though I saw a couple of Out of Competition films.
Last night saw a brilliant film by Elia Suleiman, the Palestinian director whose humorous and absurdist take on the Palestine-Israel conflict is simply outstanding. I would not be surprised if Suleiman becomes the first Arab world director to win the Palm d’Or. The film is The Time That Remains, and this is the story of Suleiman’s own family (he plays himself in the film) since 1948, based on his father’s diaries and his mother’s letters to relatives who had to leave Palestine due to political reasons. Suleiman had won the Jury Prize at 2002 Cannes for his Divine Intervention, and this one could take him further up.
Another film that has set itself apart is Michael Haneke’s masterly The White Ribbon. The controlled manner in which Haneke has developed the story set in a Protestant village in Austria during the year leading to the First World War is something to be seen. The film is in black & white and there is no background music.
For someone like me, who is not aware about the social equation in Austria of those times, it is slightly difficult to understand the connotations of the film, but that does not rob one of the viewing pleasure that this one gives.
Cannes, yes, is cinema paradiso. Now I know why people who come here once wants to come here every time.
Tags: 62nd Cannes Film Festival, World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Enjoy..Utpal..in Jannatul Firdaus..thanks for the updates
Update is that Haneke has won the Palm d’or