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A ‘Silent Film’ gets a sound prize

The recently concludedCannesfilm festival is a landmark for the Indian film industry. The icing on the cake was the fact that the Jury Prize (Ex-aequo) for Best Short Film was awarded jointly to Manish Jha’s A Very Very Silent Film (India) and The Stone Folly by Jesse Rosensweet (Canada).

Manish Jha’s A Very Very Silent Film runs for five minutes and is about poor, homeless women inIndia. What is impressive is that the maker is only 23 years old and this is his directorial debut.

Bhagmati- The Queen of Fortunes,India’s first live and animation film starring Tabu, HemaMalini and MilindSoman, elicited a good response. AtulGoel of E-City (who are marketing the film) said that the film would soon be released internationally.

Devdas, the most expensive film ever made in Bollywood, premiered to a favorable response from an international audience. Sanjay LeelaBhansali had spent Rs.50 crore in making this extravaganza and the results were there for the audience to experience. The film has an impressie star cast of Shah Rukh Khan, AishwaryaRai and MadhuriDixit. The lead pair was present. Madhuri, however, was unable to make it since she could not get a French visa.

The Indian delegation did not spare any expense in making its presence felt. Glamorous parties co-hosted by SavitriKunadi, Indian Ambassador to France, and SushmaSwaraj, Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, were thrown. Leading luminaries of Bollywood including ShekharKapur, SubhashGhai, Yash and KaranJohar, producer AshokAmritraj and the Kapoor clan graced these parties.

The Indian Pavilion, co-sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), looked typically Bollywood. The pavilion was managed by AnjulyChibDuggal, Joint Secretary (films), Ministry of information and Broadcasting and Deepak Sandhu, Director, Directorate of Film Festivals.

There was also a RajKapoor tribute. RituNanda, daughter of RajKapoor unveiled RajKapoor Speaks – a multimedia CD and also a website – RajKapoorIndia.

This is the first time that the Indian film industry, the largest in the world, has been given such recognition and the film fraternity hopes that this will help Indian films command a good market with Western audience too.