The India Pavilion at the Cannes festival in France is focussing on collaborating and promoting the country as a destination for filming documentaries and films and also partnerships for the same. This year being a very important year for the Indian Cinema, the focus lies on promoting it at a global level to gain more foothold and hence a few panel discussions have been organized on topics related to Indian Cinema.
I&B secretary Uday Kumar Varma said that Indian Cinema has had a distinct approach to cinema in the long run, and that is what the foundation of its success is. Talking about measures being taken for promotion of India as a destination to shoot films, he said that there will be a Single Window Clearance set up for foreign products keen to shoot in India. Also, there will be a special committee set up to sort certification from the CBFC’s end. He went on to say that they will give young filmmakers a chance to showcase their talent by some special facilities for screening.
The India Pavilion is hosting and celebrating projects which were a part of Film Bazaar 2011, namely The LunchBox and Monsoon Shootout. There are also a number of panel discussions on going beyond prejudices and the current scene of the Indian Cinema. The key participants in these discussions are Amit Kumar, Ritesh Batra and the Bombay Talkies directors Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee. Some sessions had been organized to talk about recent successful Indian and international co-productions. These discussions at the India Pavilion were to highlight the success of Indian cinema and to assure global credti to the deserved films.
There has been a noticeable rise in the number of delegates in the Cannes compared to the previous years to add in celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. India has been given the status of ‘Special Guest Country’ at the Cannes. 5 different Indian films made it to the Cannes this year, which are Anurag Kashyap’s Ugly, Ritesh Batra’s The LunchBox, Bombay Talkies, Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout and Satyajit Ray’s Charulata.
