skip to content
Advertisement
Premium
This is an archive article published on May 24, 2024

Indian films Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know and Bunnyhood win first and third prize at Cannes Film Festival’s La Cinef

In a major triumph for India at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Chidananda S Naik's Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know... won the first prize of La Cinef.

india wins at cannes film festivalSunflowers Were the First to Know and Bunnyhood win at Cannes Film Festival's La Cinef.

In a major triumph for India at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, Chidananda S Naik’s Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know… won the first prize of La Cinef on Thursday here.

The Mysuru doctor-turned-filmmaker made the film at the end of his one-year course in the television wing of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India. Sunflowers… is based on a Kannada folk tale about an old woman who steals a rooster.

The third prize of the La Cinef competition went to Mansi Maheshwari’s animation film Bunnyhood. Maheshwari, born in Meerut and an ex-student of NIFT Delhi, made the film as a student of UK’s National Film and Television School.

Story continues below this ad

ALSO READ | Express At Cannes: Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light is a meditative soliloquy on loneliness and connection

The second prize was shared by Out of the Widow Through the Wall, directed by Columbia University’s Asya Segalovich, and The Chaos She Left Behind, made by Nikos Kolioukos of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.

The Cannes Film Festival awards a 15,000 euro grant for the first prize winner, 11,250 euros for the runner and 7,500 euros for the third prize recipient.

The awarded films will be screened at the Cinema du Pantheon on June 3 and at the MK2 Quai de Seine on June 4.

Story continues below this ad

The first prize for Naik is India’s second in five years. In 2020, Ashmita Guha Neogi, also from FTII, won the award for her film CatDog.

Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.

Latest Comment
Post Comment
Read Comments
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement