Cannes 2017 India Going Gaga Over Aishwarya Rai and Sonam But no Indian Film In Competition

Cannes 2017 India Going Gaga Over Aishwarya Rai and Sonam But no Indian Film In Competition

Do you know Sonam Kapoor wore a pink Elie Saab gown with a deep-boat neckline and a "flowing skirt with a small train" at Cannes this year? Do you know that Amy Jackson, who is apparently an actor, walked on the Cannes red carpet this year wearing an Atelier Versace collection? (It is okay if you can't pronounce that, because neither can this writer) Do you also know that Mallika Sherawat attended the Cannes Film Festival wearing a dress made by her favourite designer Georges Hobeika, just like she did last year? And of course, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was at Cannes this year too, you probably know this one, but do you know what she wore?

There is no reason you should know these things but Bing-search "Cannes 2017" if you are an Indian, and you will be force-fed information about what a bunch of actresses were wearing and doing at the Cannes Film Festival. The Indian media's coverage of the Cannes Film Festival starts from the neckline of an actress and stops at wherever her mile-long outfit ends, which is sad.

Because, HELLO! The Cannes Film Festival is about C-I-N-E-M-A. Films. Not fashion. It is not the Cannes Fashion Festival, ladies and gents. But it has become so with every Sita-Mita-Gita of the Indian film industry flying off to Cannes to promote some clothing/lifestyle brand or some organisation a la Aishwarya Rai who made Cannes a household name when she visited the festival for the first time in 2002. That year, Devdas was screened at Cannes, out of competition, and photos of Aishwarya looking like a million bucks made it to Indian tabloids back home. The very next year, Aishwarya Rai became L'Oreal's brand ambassador and a Cannes jury member. Since then, every year, Cannes Film Festival is positioned in India as some fashionista's paradise where Indian actresses travel to look like swans draped in upholstery.

There are a bunch of infuriating things about this set-up. First, like the writer has already mentioned, Cannes Film Festival is about cinema, not fashion. It is where the world's best films and their makers compete for top honours while filmmakers and film studios look for distribution and co-production deals for their projects. It is a film-making-oriented bazaar where film lovers and film professionals gather each year to watch, experience, make and buy films. Cannes is NOT the Milan Fashion Week.

Secondly, Indian films rarely show up at Cannes. If you hear an Indian film getting screened, it is most likely that the producers have bought a theatre for a screening. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting sets up an 'Indian Pavilion' whose focus is to promote Indian cinema to global audiences. Like most years, no Indian film is competing for any award at the Cannes this year. In the last decade, only 3 Indian films - Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan (2010), Kanu Behl's Titli (2014) and Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan (2015) have been screened in competitive sections. If you hear an Indian film getting screened under any 'official' category, it is always out of competition, such as Gangs of Wasseypur which was screened under 'Director's Fortnight' or The Lunchbox which got screened in the 'International Critics' Week' section.

Just this year, the Indian ambassador to France Mohan Kumar mewed at Cannes, "Ignoring a film industry like Bollywood isn't a smart thing for Cannes to do." Boo-hoo-hoo. If the Indian government thinks that Bollywood films are entitled to get screened at Cannes, then it might as well back (read: finance) quality films made by promising indigenous talent and promote them worldwide. Instead, it has got Pahlaj Nihalani to snip-snip through films that will shock your grandfather and the actor of Jungle Love aka Yudhisthir to head the premier film school of India.

What is worse is that a rosy picture is painted of India's report card at Cannes by highlighting Aishwarya Rai Bachchan wearing a dress that can cover the globe.

Things were not this bad years ago. Chetan Anand's Neecha Nagar won the festival's then-top prize, Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, in 1946. Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin won the International Prize in 1954. Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali won the Best Human Document Palme d'Or at Cannes 1956. Indian films made regular appearances at Cannes throughout the '60s and '70s. In 1988, Salaam Bombay! won two awards at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival. Since then, Indian films have seldom made noise at Cannes, internationally, that is, because back home, the country fainted because Devdas got a flashy out-of-competition screening in 2002.

If Indians are going to play victim and peddle the narrative that white folks don't appreciate our cinema, then woe betide us. If Indians are going to think of Cannes as the place where actresses flaunt haute couture, then it's a big, big shame. Imagine it took an American magazine, Variety, to extensively cover Priyanka Chopra's production house looking for international finance for its slate of regional films. But what are we interested in? What Priyanka Chopra is wearing.