Opinion At Cannes,to market

It’s hard being a long-time film critic and not be up to there with all the stories that Cannes regulars love relating. But even my strong in-built hype metre goes out of the window at the first run I get of the Grand Palais,the theatre that shows all the films in competition,and which you get into only after you’ve done the famed red carpet walk. In my case,it happens on the opening night,when invitee anticipation and the tetchiness quotient among the waiting media mob is at its highest. You get on to that stretch of red,amongst a sea of tuxedos (you don’t have a bow tie,you don’t get in) and dresses (no casuals please,we are Cannes),and you can smell it: the ozone that goes with the excitement that is so specific to this South of France hot-spot.

This year is an important marker for Indian cinema,having begun its centenary celebrations just ahead of its big showing in Cannes. Four films in different sections,several more in the short film corner. Studio heads,producers,directors milling about. And so many “desi” faces that,at one point,it looks as if India has over-run the Croisette,the street that cuts right through the city centre and where all the activity occurs. Hotels,theatres,cineplexes,open air cafes and bistros,and the rows of pavilions,distinguishable by their national flags,which are used as hang-out places for film people looking to network.

It is easy to get swept up in the “big India year at Cannes” noise because there’s no doubt that this is the maximum exposure Indian cinema has received at the festival,now in its 65th year. The classics section presented Uday Shankar’s restored Kalpana,a still-relevant 1948 dance-drama feature. Un Certain Regard had Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely,about the sleazy underbelly of the Mumbai film industry in the 1980s. The Director’s Fortnight screened Anurag Kashyap’s two-part opus Gangs Of Wasseypur,and the Critic’s Week sidebar had the debutant Vasan Bala’s gritty take on his slice of Mumbai,Peddlers.

For India,it’s never been better. But is this good enough? Can it get better? The questions lead to some hard answers,starting with the obvious. No,it isn’t,and yes,it can. The Indian film industry — which has largely and unfairly come to mean Bollywood — has always had such a strong indigenous market for its own products that,for years on end,it never needed to go out. Song-and-dance musicals is what the rest of the world called it and we were happy,wallowing in our own,by our own. But now things are different,and have been for at least a decade.

For one,there is no single homogeneous market that can make each and every Bollywood vehicle profitable. Those territories are shrinking by the day. Audiences have changed and are dumping stale stuff faster than it is being made. Young filmmakers are springing up,willing to take on edgy subjects that require at least the semblance of originality. The gap between big budget starry tentpoles and the small independent film has always existed,but now the prospect of fresh markets is taking movies and movie-making into an area that is still uncharted. And film festivals like Cannes,with its vast market,attract newer filmmakers like bees to honey.

“This is an exciting phase for India,and in India,” says Michael J. Werner,chairman of Fortissimo,one of the biggest sales agents in the world,who shows up at the India pavilion to check out the new wares. An acquisition by an agency like Fortissimo practically guarantees a release in Europe and other parts where Indian cinema is still considered an exotic alien creature. But haven’t there always been different kinds of films made in India,I ask him. Sure,he says,but there’s never been such awareness and such a hankering for conquering newer spaces. There is mounting interest in the way the younger filmmakers are telling their stories,in a world thirsting for movies with soul. India may glory in Robot,with its machine with a heart,but it is still far from the strictly computer-generated,clanky Transformers. Indian films are unafraid of channelling emotions and that’s a scarce,valuable commodity these days.

Co-production is the name of the new game. It has been the way the world makes movies for a while now,and it is only now percolating into India. “I cannot underline enough the importance of co-production ventures”,says Nina Lath Gupta,managing director,National Film Development Corporation (NFDC),who has been coming to Cannes for over 10 years and has actively pushed for the growth of the Indian market at the festival. “Money coming from outside,whether at the development stage or the production stage,or at the crucial phase of distribution,can dramatically change the way we make our movies and tell our stories,the ones that are rooted in the local ethos and have global appeal,” says Gupta.

For independent producers and directors like partners Sanjay Suri and Onir,a lucky strike at Cannes can be the way out of the morass they find themselves in. Says Onir,right after finishing a roundtable event where he spoke about his future projects: “There have been Indian producers getting in touch with me after I Am got the National Award,but I constantly keep getting warned about how I should stay with ‘safe subjects’,away from violence and sexuality.” He’s not only upset at the way violence and sex is linked in this particular way,he’s also not ecstatic about being straitjacketed. If a successful pitch here can get him money,it frees him up.

Which is exactly what all filmmakers are looking for,especially those who have to function outside the Bollywood studio system. Someone like Kaushik Mukherjee,better known as Q,for example,whose explicit Gandu still has people chattering. “That was just a start. Basically,I want to subvert the system,” he grins,his trademark red frames glinting. The film that he’s in the middle of now,Tasher Desh,based on a Rabindranath Tagore work,doesn’t sound half as outre,but the interest he’s managed to generate here has let him up to the next level.

Far from independent filmmakers getting their whistle wet in the market maze,Bollywood beauties are walking the red carpet for global cosmetic giants,and getting the flashbulbs to pop. Sonam! Mallika!!

Aishwarya!!! They cater to another kind of market,the kind that also thrives so uniquely at Cannes. Meanwhile,we wait for that elusive Indian film that makes it to the competition section. That will be the day.

shubhra.gupta@expressindia.com