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“India embraces the cinema of the whole world…In a future issue, I shall show why India is the creation of the whole world.”
Jean-Luc Godard

It has been 14 long years since an Indian Film has made the Competition Selection of the Cannes International Film Festival. And that particular Competition Selection, Shaji Karun’s second feature Swaham (1994), happens to be the only instance for the decade of the 90s. Around the time, some of Shaji Karun’s well wishers, prompted by Andrew Robinson’s comparison of the debut features, pompously declared that “there are only two Indian films - Pather Panchali (1955) & Piravi (1988). Period.” What is common to both the films, & the probable reason for the latter film’s exaltation, is a certain institution that has consistently, for the last six decades, managed to play world cinema’s official conscience-keeper & harbinger of the evolution of cinema itself - the Cannes International Film Festival. Satyajit Ray’s debut feature Pather Panchali (1955) was showcased at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival, in the Competition section where the film won the Best Human Document Award, while Shaji Karun’s debut, Piravi, made in 1988, premiered at Cannes 1989 in the Un Certain Regard category & walked away with the Camera D’Or Special Mention (for Best First film).

With Pather Panchali’s selection to Participate in the Competition section, & the subsequent feting of the film, Satyajit Ray discovered Cannes Film Festival for Indian Cinema, and consequently, the Cannes International Film Festival discovered Indian Cinema for the world. Not at all the case that Cannes was unaware of Indian Cinema before 1956; in fact 1950s is the most prolific decade as far as Indian films’ presence in the Cannes Competition section goes. India had entries in every single year of the Festival in the 1950s (see Appendix 1). But what distinguishes Satyajit Ray, & his Pather Panchali, is not much unlike a reading of Orson Welles’, & the Nouvelle Vague’s, importance in the cinematic pantheon. Film practitioners, before Welles debuted on the marquee, were born before the invention of cinema. They practically discovered the medium, & continually yearned to evolve the medium as they went along. Whereas, Orson Welles had a small archive of cinema to contend-with, be aware of, re-search, & partake to be influenced-by. The same is true of the Young Turks of the Nouvelle Vague who indentured at the Cinematheques, & Film-Clubs, while sharpening their cinematic skills analyzing and critiquing cinema of their times.

Indian cinema’s beginnings were marked with Mythologicals, & increasingly pre-occupied with the Nationalist Movement under the British Colonial government. This pre-occupation translated into having to make seemingly non-offending films that might get strangulated at the British Censors. It was only with the post-independent filmmakers that Indian Cinema was liberated from having to make socially relevant films under the guise of, what was considered harmless, Mythologicals. Satyajit Ray came from an awareness of world cinema, & its latest achievements, during his travels abroad & with his proximity with the Renoir-helmed The River in & around Calcutta. But filmmakers before Satyajit Ray aspired to belong to the mainstream that was brewing in the country’s commercial capital of Bombay.

Abruptly, with Satyajit Ray’s subsequent films, after the spectacular debut of Pather Panchali, Indian Cinema’s & Cannes Festival’s courtship went through troubled times. Ray chose to showcase his films at the other, equally prestigious, film festivals of Venice and Berlin where he consistently won Top Prizes through the rest of his illustrious career. This period in the 60s also coincided with the inception of India’s premier Film School, the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), in Pune. FTII graduates, over the years, were successfully able to bring into being the country’s New Cinema. Whatever went wrong, these films hardly managed to garner international film community’s attention. Does this development question its makers’ aspiration itself, or if it was a gross misreading of the barometer of cinematic acceptance, somebody need answer someday. It is no surprise that the first generation of New Indian Cinema filmmakers were mentored by Ray’s contemporary Ritwik Ghatak, who himself went un-noticed for his contribution during his lifetime. It is ironical, on the part of the Cannes Film Festival, that posthumous retrospectives of Ritwik Ghatak & Gurudutt adore the Cannes sidebar screens while no interest was shown in them when they came out of the times these films were articulating. To exaggerate, Cannes Film Festival has about 200 awards up for grabs annually, instituted in the names of prominent filmmakers from around the globe. But none, amongst the multitude of prizes, happen to exist in an Indian Filmmaker’s honor.

It is even more surprising, again on the part of the Cannes Film Festival, of the desperate courting of Bollywood in the last few years, purely as a cosmetic value for their sidebar events, as if to threaten that this insult shall be meted out until such time we practice a genre of films we seem to be suspect at - Truly Brilliant Films. Not to be left out, Bollywood has equally been requiting of Cannes’ gesture by showing-up for the events and misleading an already irresponsible Indian Media whose self-image hasn’t warranted that it demand, encourage, & appreciate raising the bar for Indian cinema.

I shall not endeavour with plausible excuses, on behalf of either the festival or Indian cinema. But what I shall, is pick 3 films that were to have been flirted-with vigorously by the festival in question, & at any rate by a conscientious cinema-seeking audience, that were not to be;
1. Devdas, 1935
PC Barua’s original Bengali version, with the director playing the lead, & one Mr. Bimal Roy serving as Assistant Cameraman.
2. Om-D-B-Dar, 1988
Kamal Swarup’s audacious filmmaking, of a childhood reminisced & a future waxed prophetic.
3. Kaalabhirati, 1989
Amitabh Chakraborty’s (in collaboration with DOP Sashikanth Ananthacharya) experimental deliberation, (cinematic) magic-making. 

Godard shall be invoked again, as he shall also not go unblamed. It is, in a sense, all his fault. In his days as a film critic, Jean-Luc Godard, while preparing for his first feature A Bout de Souffle, in June 1959 wrote a piece for the Cahiers du Cinema magazine (issue # 96) titled ‘note on India’. He starts the piece by saying “pending a more detailed analysis” he would suffice it with passwords, and ends the piece by declaring, “India embraces the cinema of the whole world” and that “In a future issue, I shall show why India is the creation of the whole world.” I wish Godard did write, in the much-promised ‘future issue’, about the subject that unfortunately was never broached again.

I doubly wish Godard were talking about India (Indian Cinema) as opposed to what he actually was talking about - Roberto Rossellini’s acclaimed 1958 feature India, set in the country of the same name.

Appendix 1 - Complete list of Indian entries in the Cannes Competition section:
1. 1946: Neecha Nagar (1946) - Chetan Anand
2. 1952: Amar Bhoopali (1951) – V. Shantaram
3. 1953: Awaara (1951) - Raj Kapoor
4. 1954: Do Bigha Zameen (1953) - Bimal Roy
5. 1954: Mayurpankh (1954) - Kishore Sahu
6. 1955: Biraj Bahu (1954) - Bimal Roy
7. 1955: Boot Polish (1954) - Prakash Arora
8. 1956: Pather Panchali (1955) - Satyajit Ray
9. 1956: Shevgyachya Shenga (1955) - Shantaram Athavale
10. 1957: Gotoma the Buddha (1956) - Rajbans Khanna
11. 1958: Parash Pathar (1958) - Satyajit Ray
12. 1958: Pardesi (1957) – K. A. Abbas; Vasili Pronin
13. 1959: Lajwanti (1958) - Narendra Suri
14. 1960: Sujata (1959) - Bimal Roy
15. 1962: Devi (1960) - Satyajit Ray
16. 1964: Mujhe Jeene Do (1963) - Moni Bhattacharjee
17. 1974: Garam Hawa (1973) - M.S. Sathyu
18. 1976: Nishaant (1975) - Shyam Benegal
19. 1980: Ek Din Pratidin (1979) - Mrinal Sen
20. 1983: Kharij (1982) - Mrinal Sen
21. 1984: Ghare-Baire (1984) - Satyajit Ray
22. 1986: Genesis (1986) - Mrinal Sen
23. 1994: Swaham (1994) - Shaji N. Karun

Appendix 2 - Complete list of Indian Award Winners at Cannes:
1946: Neecha Nagar (1946, Chetan Anand)  - Joint Festival Top Prize of Grand Prix du Festival International du Film
1954: Do Bigha Zameen (1953, Bimal Roy) –(Joint) International Prize
1955: Boot Polish (1954, Prakash Arora) - Naaz (Special mention to a child actress)
1956: Pather Panchali (1955, Satyajit Ray)-
Best Human Document
OCIC Award - Special Mention
1957: Gotoma the Buddha (1956, Rajbans Khanna) – Best Director (Special Mention)
1983: Kharij (1982, Mrinal Sen) - Jury Prize (Cannes’ 3rd top prize)
1988: Salaam Bombay! (1988, Mira Nair) -
Golden Camera (Best Debut Feature)
Audience Award
 1989: Piravi (1988, Shaji N. Karun) - Golden Camera - Special Mention (Joint Winner)
[1991: Sam & Me (1991, Deepa Mehta) - Golden Camera - Special Mention (presented as a Canadian film)]
1998: The Sheep Thief (1997, Asif Kapadia) - Cinefondation Award (2nd prize, Short Film)
1999: Marana Simhasanam (1999, Murali Nair) - Golden Camera (Best Debut Feature)
2002: A Very Very Silent Film (2001, Manish Jha) - Best Short Film (Joint Winner)
2006: Printed Rainbow (2006, Gitanjali Rao) -
Kodak Short Film Award
Young Critics Award (Joint Winner)
Small Golden Rail

Appendix 3 - Complete list of India on the Cannes Jury:
1958: Krishna Riboud (India) (short films);
Jury President: Marcel Achard

1982: Mrinal Sen
Jury President: Giorgio Strehler

1990: Mira Nair
Jury President: Bernado Bertolucci

2000: Arundhati Roy
Jury President: Luc Besson

2003: Aishwarya Rai
Jury President: Patrice Chereau

2005: Nandita Das
Jury President: Emir Kusturica

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