Actor Sobhita Dhulipala who attended the Cannes Film Festival this year as a representative of an ice cream brand, recently relived her first Cannes experience. She revealed that the first time she attended the prestigious festival was for the premiere of Anurag Kashyap's Raman Raghav 2.0 which starred her along with actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vicky Kaushal. She recalled that they were all living in an Airbnb apartment far away from where the film festival takes place, and how they missed the premiere of the film. Raman Raghav 2.0 premiered in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Talking to Film Companion, Sobhita shared that when Anurag told her that they are going to Cannes, she had to start reading up about the event's legacy to educate herself. "I had only known the red carpet pictures in papers, the glamour and all of that. I had no insight into the actual world of cinema. I didn't have access to it." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Sobhita (@sobhitad) She then shared how she and others from the film's team cooked their own meals, and called it a very "grounding" experience. She said, "When we got here, we were all staying in an Airbnb somewhere far away. The experience was very grounding. We were getting eggs and onions from a local shop and we were cooking in the house, it was very cute. Now, when I look back, it was not flamboyant in any way, we were just doing very desi things. We didn't know the film would have a premiere, so we just entered the theatre and the director just screamed at us because the press had left. And we were like, 'There was a premiere?’ We didn't know." She said that her first Cannes experience was an enriching one. "I didn't know so much, I was also learning on the go. I didn't know so much about the festival, except whatever I could Google and it shaped me because I could see that people respected the craft and you didn't have to belong. You could just do your thing and be authentic passionate and do it beautifully and you have a place in the sun." "It instilled a sense of freedom in me. From that point, I wanted to do parts that had scope for performance in whatever little way. I wasn't in the position to say that ‘I wanted to do this,’ I didn't know, I was trying to pick from the opportunities that were accessible to me. It shaped my sense of judgement. Something that involved a bit of performance became a priority which otherwise may not be so important. (Before this) I would hustle to get something to just be out there. It made me want to do it more meaningfully," she added. Raman Raghav 2.0 released in cinemas in India in June 2016. It received a lot of critical appreciation and is considered as one of Kashyap's best films. He returned to the festival last year, with the still-unreleased Kennedy.
