Cannes Festival 2024: Anand Mahindra celebrates India’s ‘intense’ filmmaking, ‘May their tribe flourish…’

Anand Mahindra, in a post on X (formerly Twitter), has celebrated India’s success at the Cannes 2024. “India in the limelight at #cannes2024. Intense Filmmakers . Intense actors. May their tribe flourish,” the 69-year-old billionaire posted while sharing the poster of The Shameless and All We Imagine As Light.

Three Indian films won major awards in the competitive sections at the at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light, Chidananda S Naik's Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know and Anasuya Sengupta of The Shameless each took home a prize.

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This achievement made the 77th edition of Cannes especially memorable for India. The festival featured eight films from India or about Indian themes.

Kapadia, a graduate of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), made history as the first Indian filmmaker to win the Grand Prix award for her film All We Imagine as Light.

"Thank you, Cannes Film Festival for having our film here. Please don't wait 30 years to have another Indian film," PTI quoted her as saying in her speech.

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The movie won the second highest award at the gala, after the Palme d'Or, which American director Sean Baker received for Anora.

All We Imagine as Light is a Malayalam-Hindi movie featuring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam. It tells the story of three women from Mumbai who take a road trip to a beach town.

Directed by Kapadia in her first movie, it is the first Indian film in 30 years to compete in a major festival and the first ever by an Indian woman. The last Indian film to do so was Swaham in 1994, directed by Shaji N Karun.

Anasuya Sengupta in The Shameless

Anasuya Sengupta won the Best Actress award at Un Certain Regard for her role in The Shameless, directed by Konstantin Bojanov. This made her the first Indian to win this award. The Shameless tells the story of two sex workers who develop a friendship.

(With PTI inputs)