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Cannes
India with its young talent rocked at the 77th Cannes Film Festival with Chidananda S. Naik’s “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know…” winning the first prize of La Cinef here. The Mysuru doctor-turned filmmaker made the film at the end of his one-year course in the television wing of Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India.
The Festival de Cannes allocates a €15,000 grant for the First Prize, €11,250 for the Second and €7,500 for the Third. The awarded films will be screened at the Cinéma du Panthéon on June 3 and at the MK2 Quai de Seine on June 4.
“Sunflowers…” is based on Kannada folk tale about an old woman who steals a rooster. As a result of her action, the son stops rising in the village. The third prize of the La Cinef competition went to Mansi Maheshwari’s animation film “Bunnyhood”. Maheshwari, born in Meerut and an ex-student of NIFT Delhi.
Hailing from Mysuru, the 29-year-old Naik said, “For my graduation project, I always wanted to do a Kannada film, so that’s where it all began. While we were brainstorming, I pitched the idea and my team really wanted to take this up as our graduation film.”
The Short Films and La Cinef Jury was presided by Lubna Azabal. The ceremony was held at the Buñuel Theatre, followed by the screening of the winning films. La Cinef consisted of 18 student films, chosen out of 2 263 entries coming from 555 film schools around the world.
