Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Dr L.Murugan will lead an Indian Delegation to Cannes International Film Festival this year, which starts later this month.

The Minister will be accompanied on the red carpet by filmmaker Guneet Monga of ‘The Elephant Whisperers’-fame, Manushi Chillar, Indian actress, model and  the winner of the Miss World 2017,  actor Esha Gupta and Kangabam Tomba, acclaimed Manipuri Actor, whose restored film  ‘Ishanau’, is being screened in Cannes Classic Section this year.

According to an official statement yesterday, the India Pavilion is being conceptualised and designed by National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad with the theme ‘Showcasing India’s Creative Economy’ to the global community.

The pavilion design has been inspired by the Saraswati Yantra, the abstract representation of goddess Saraswati, keeper of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom and learning. The colours of the pavilion draw inspiration from the vibrant colours of India’s national flag – saffron, white, and green.

The government feels that India has  a huge reservoir of talent and the Indian pavilion will provide a platform to the Indian film community  to sign distribution deals, greenlight scripts, crack production collaborations and simply network with the world’s major entertainment and media players.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shri Anurag Thakur will address the inaugural session through a video message to showcase India as a global hub for content creation at the 76th edition of Cannes’s festival.

Four Indian films have made it to the official selection in Cannes Film Festival. Kanu Behl’s ‘Agra’ will be his second film to have its world premiere at Cannes, at the Directors’ Fortnight. His 2014 debut film, ‘Titli’, was unveiled at the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section. Anurag Kashyap’s ‘Kennedy’ is being screened in Midnight Screenings and ‘Nehemich’ in the La Cinef section of the Festival de Cannes. Apart from these, many Indian films are slotted for being screened in Marche du Films.

The eclectic bouquet of Indian films being screened in the segments of both Festival de Cannes and marche du Films  underlines that Indian cinema has truly come of age, the official statement said.

A series of interactive sessions will be organised throughout the festival at India Pavilion. The key sessions planned are the following:

# Showcasing India as the complete filming destination and  co-production engagement with Global Film Commissions will foster filming in India. It will not only give impetus to the growth of the film sector but also has potential to enormously boost tourism in the country. Incentives announced last year at Cannes, would be pitched to get more filmmakers to India.

# Facilitating distribution collaboration between nations will break the barriers of Indian films travelling across world markets

# Engaging with other key film markets and festivals to draw synergies for the Indian international film fest.

# She Shines: Contribution of women in cinema would highlight the women’s presence in filmmaking.

# Session on the format of ‘75 Creative Minds of Tomorrow’, started to nurture young film talents in IFFI 2020,  would showcase its success story and also facilitate in getting more collaborations for it.