India at Cannes: What does Payal Kapadia’s win mean for our film industry

Was she hoping for the Palme d’or (the top prize)? “We’re not really thinking about anything in Cannes, we are very superstitious,” she said. Ranabir Das, Kapadia’s partner and the cinematographer of her films, and their long-time French producer Thomas Hakim, close and constant collaborators, were alongside, and the former added, “There’s no point in thinking about something which is not in our hands”.

So were they saying ‘Hua toh theek hai, nahin toh bhi theek’? Kapadia looked relaxed, displaying no sign of nerves, or at least none that one could observe. She said, “Ho gaya toh badhiya hai, par itna bhi hua toh badi baat hai. Humnein expect nahin kiya thaa ki hamaari film yahan tak aayegi, toh prize hi hai hamaare liye (It will be great if it happens, but even if it doesn’t, it’s still a big thing. We didn’t expect our film to reach till here, so this in itself is a prize for us).”

A still from Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light

Which, is entirely true. Kapadia’s film broke into the Cannes competition section 30 years after Shaji N Karun’s Swaham, something she mentioned at her acceptance speech the following day after receiving the Grand Prix (the second-highest prize) from a jury led by American writer-director Greta Gerwig. The Palme went to Sean Baker’s Anora, featuring Mikey Madison as a stripper, who has a heart of gold, involved with a rich young Russian with dodgy antecedents. The film, carrying Baker’s signature all over it, is a great mix of kinesis and compassion, but it has a few repetitive loops. Kapadia’s film comes from her singular vision, with not one predictable beat: it surprised me at every turn.

“Please don’t wait 30 years to have another Indian film here,” Kapadia said, thanking the Cannes film festival. That was a moment. Not just because of the huge win; but that, in the midst of all that joy, she was able to point out the problem of being oblivious to non-mainstream Indian cinema, the comment applicable to gatekeepers both outside the country, and at home.

At the event, the image of a beaming Kapadia holding aloft her trophy, with her actors Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam and Hridhu Haroon, rippled towards all who had been holding their breath in anticipation. This ripple is not going to stop. It will become a storm. That’s my prediction.

While Kapadia’s win was undoubtedly a big one, there was much else to celebrate at this 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which came to an end last week. With a clutch of films being showcased in different sections, this has truly been a glorious Indian summer at the Croisette.

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The multi-talented Anasuya Sengupta, graphic artist, production designer, actor, all rolled into one, won the Best Actress award in the Un Certain Regard category, for Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov’s The Shameless. In this film, made in Hindi, she played the part of a sex-worker on the run.

Also in the same section, was British-Indian director Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, a police procedural laced by a sharp societal critique, starring Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar. Goswami plays a young widow who joins the police force (job given on compassionate grounds) in a north-Indian town, only to discover for herself the deep fault lines of caste and religion which refuse to fade; Rajwar is the case-hardened veteran, cast interestingly against type. ‘I’ve been to Cannes before just to watch films, but to do this (the red carpet, the full-house premiere, the applause) for your own film is unbelievable,” says Goswami. Rajwar, whose first time this is, concurs.

Another UK-based Indian director, Karan Kandhari, who calls himself from ‘everywhere and nowhere’, was part of the Director’s Fortnight, a section which runs parallel to the festival, and whose programming, quite often, turns out to be even more interesting than many of the main sections. His black comedy Sister Midnight, starring Radhika Apte as a housewife totally unfit for the job description, which melds musical genres and stop-motion technology, is a scream.

The La Cinef Award went to Chidananda S Naik’s short film Sunflowers Were The First To Know, and the third prize in that category went to UK-based Mansi Maheshwari for Bunnyhood.

Kapadia’s batchmate from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) Maisam Ali’s In Retreat was part of the Association for the Diffusion of Independent Cinema sidebar. The first Indian film to make the cut in this section, it refreshes the on-the-road-in-search-of-self theme with a spot-on performance from Harish Khanna.

Naseeruddin Shah with Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and Prateik Babbar

In the Classics section, the screening of a beautifully-restored version of Shyam Benegal’s Manthan (1976) was an evening to remember. The director couldn’t be there because of ill-health, but actor Naseeruddin Shah was at hand to experience exactly how special the standing ovation (seven minutes) at Cannes can feel. “I am so moved,” he said, “and this is such a special film”. So was the late Smita Patil’s son Prateik Babbar and her sisters, Anita and Manya.
Sharing details about the painstaking restoration process, Shivendra Dungarpur of the Film Heritage Foundation, spoke of the green mould and flicker problems with the print that “Shyam babu offered me, asking me to do something”. That ‘something’ has turned into the very film that Benegal and cinematographer Govind Nihalani wanted to shoot. “They are both delighted,” says Dungarpur, who is, by now, a Cannes Classics habitue, having presented restored versions of such classics as Thamp (1978), Ishanou (1990) and Kalpana (1948).

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Can there be cinema without cinematographers, their chief architects? Santosh Sivan was feted by the Pierre Angenieux tribute, an award which honoured his vast and varied cinematography: Preity Zinta, who has been lensed by him in many of her films, was present, and several top Indian stars, including Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan and directors Shekhar Kapur and Mira Nair sent in recorded congratulatory messages, which were played out at the ceremony. “To be given this award here at Cannes is special,” said Sivan, “This festival has a very strong focus which honours technicians and treats them as stars.”

And then there was AR Rahman, making a splash at the Croisette as the producer of From Headhunting to Beatboxing, a documentary on music from Nagaland, directed by Rohit Gupta. Rahman, a huge star in his own right, created the expected stir with his unveiling of the five-years-in-the-making first look of the documentary. Why Nagaland, I asked him, fighting off the crush; everyone wanted a piece of him. “I fell in love with it when I first went, and the music, oh my god,” he said.

Santosh Sivan receives the Pierre Angénieux Award (Credit: Angénieux)

It’s been a week since that euphoric win, and the dust is beginning to settle. Time now to take stock : What does Kapadia’s win mean for her and for other filmmakers who want to march to their own drums?

The first thing to take note of is just how little was known of these Cannes winners, before last week. The fact that Kapadia is from the FTII is now all over the place, as is the fact that she was part of the 2015 protest against Gajendra Chauhan being appointed chairperson of the institute. For her pains, her scholarship was stopped and she and the other protestors were formally charged: court cases against them are pending.

There has always been an uneasy relationship between the state and the film institute, whose dimming excellence is now seeing a revival. The only way India, or for that matter any other film-making nation, will be taken note of at such film festivals as Cannes, is if it has a robust independent film-making culture. And that can only happen if the freedom to conceive, create and imagine is unfettered.

Kapadia’s talent was honed with her years at the institute (her short film, Afternoon Clouds was selected in the Cinefondation in 2017), so has that of the others who have been part of FTII, which includes this year’s winners Ali and Naik. Films chosen to compete at top-notch global festivals come from this kind of schooling-and-training of raw talent, and if India really wants to be known for its cutting-edge cinema, and not just for its stars walking the red carpet for their brands, then this path needs to be cleared.

The other equally crucial thing is the funding-and-distribution system to nourish these winners, most of whom have had to cobble together monies from foreign funds. I found the clearest articulation of this crying need of consistent support — making independent films is expensive, and accompanying them to such festivals as Cannes is formidably so — in Tanmay Dhanania’s words: Where do we get the money from? Dhanania, with a terrific if much-too-brief turn in The Shameless, is the kind of actor you want to see more of. But lucking into a solidly-backed film is a needle-in-a-haystack-game; there are not just enough of them to go around. And where do the films go once they are complete? For most, the wait to be shown in the country of their origin, despite the awards and the critical praise, is endless.

Kapadia’s win comes at a time when most mainstream movies, buoyed by big stars and production houses, are struggling at the box office. It is clear that viewers are sick of the same-old. The question is, will they who post you-go-girl messages after the win, come and pay multiplex rates for ‘festival movies’?

I’m betting they will, at least for Kapadia’s film, just to know what a Cannes winner is like. My hope, going forward, is that there will be enough who will stay.