Although he is delighted that director Payal Kapadia won the Grand Prix award at the 77th Cannes Film Festival for her drama film All We Imagine as Light, ace filmmaker Anurag Kashyap gets frustrated when her victory is labelled as “India’s.” According to the Gangs of Wasseypur director, the Indian government does not support such films and only likes to take credit for their achievements.
Asserting that the victory of independent filmmakers at Cannes 2024 was theirs alone, he told news agency PTI, “I get very upset when it’s said ‘India@Cannes’. This is a boost… a shot in the arm for a lot of independent filmmakers but their victory is their own. India didn’t have any moment at Cannes, not a single of those films are Indian. We need to address it the way it should be addressed. India has stopped supporting such cinema, the kind of cinema that was at Cannes.”
At this year’s Cannes Festival, three Indians had won big. While Kapadia became the first Indian director to win the Grand Prix, actor Anasuya Sengupta was awarded Best Actress in the Un Certain Regard strand for The Shameless and Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) student Chidananda S Naik bagged the Best Short Film Award in the La Cinef section for Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know.
Kashyap also pointed out that All We Imagine as Light was funded by a French company and was an Indo-French co-production between Petit Chaos from France and Chalk and Cheese Films from India. Indian-British filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s Santosh and Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight were funded by the UK, while Konstantin Bojanov’s The Shameless was almost self-funded. Chidananda’s short was a production of the TV Wing’s one-year programme under the FTII.
“India didn’t have any moment at Cannes….India just likes to take credit for a lot of things.”
Listen to Anurag Kashyap pic.twitter.com/NLysbtTr6j
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“India just likes to take credit for a lot of things, they do not support these films, and they don’t even support these films to have a release in cinema. Stop taking credit for it. Let’s stop this fake celebration… Even if the film is released, no one will go to watch it in the theatre,” Kashyap said.
“This obsession India has with Cannes… More than Cannes, it’s about the red carpet. That’s on another level. I get more angry when I hear these things… Geetanjali Rao got three awards at Cannes (for ‘Printed Rainbow’) in 2003, I wrote an article on it, but it was not recognised, rarely anyone wrote about that here. There’s no support system here,” he added.
“India just likes to take credit for a lot of things, they do not support these films, and they don’t even support these films to have a release in cinema. Stop taking credit for it. Let’s stop this fake celebration… Even if the film is released, no one will go to watch it in the theatre,” Kashyap said.
“This obsession India has with Cannes… More than Cannes, it’s about the red carpet. That’s on another level. I get more angry when I hear these things… Geetanjali Rao got three awards at Cannes (for ‘Printed Rainbow’) in 2003, I wrote an article on it, but it was not recognised, rarely anyone wrote about that here. There’s no support system here,” he added.
Anurag Kashyap takes dig at Gajendra Chauhan
Kashyap further called out Gajendra Chauhan, the former chairman of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). In 2015, Kapadia was one of the students who protested against the appointment of Mahabharat actor and BJP politician Chauhan as FTII head. Following this, the protestors were charged under various IPC sections for offences related to unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation, and rioting.
“The worst part is that the man who put the case against her, and sent some students to jail, is the first man who took the credit for her and said, ‘I’m proud that I was the FTII (chairperson)’. What is his name? Yudhishthir ji (his Mahabharat role), Gajendra Chauhan said, ‘I’m so proud that she was the student when I was the head’. You are the one who put the case against her,” Kashyap added.
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