SIGHT & SOUND
Cannes circus gets bigger
Amita Malik

It goes on year after year, the Indian presence at the Cannes film festival. And the biggest film industry in the world makes it bigger every year. In terms of quantity, that is. Its participation with quality films competing for awards has gone down so much, that it is lucky that at least in recent years we have had Aishwarya Rai and Nandita Das on the jury.

And as far as the international media go only Aishwarya is recognizable, although she is there this year not to promote films but a cosmetics firm, L’Oreal. A far cry from the days when Chetan Anand won a grand prix for Neecha Nagar just after the festival reopened after World War II. And Satyajit Ray won a special award for Best Human Document for Pather Panchali. And Bimal Roy and Mrinal Sen got recognition. Since then a filmmaker like Mira Nair, based outside India, has competed successfully. But, as I said, the circus gets bigger.

And the Indian media follow suit. NDTV’s Aneesha Baig is doing a Cannes version of Night Out, interviewing the same Indian film people. The only difference being they are asked what they think of Cannes, and not about the international films screened there although discriminating Indian film buffs would want to know about the competing films, and beyond The Da Vinci Code.

Only channels with foreign feeds, like CNN-IBN and Times Now (from Reuters), are getting occasional glimpses of foreign film personalities and rare mentions of members of the jury (no Indian channel has given the full list) and foreign entries as well.

Otherwise, it is all Preity Zinta, Karan Johar (who at least knows French) and the yacht hired by the Indian Bollywood contingent where the stars seem to be holding endless parties for themselves.

I have been to Cannes several times by invitation as a film writer and also served on the critics’ jury. And, believe me, it is very difficult to get on to the red carpet and inside the Grand Palais as critics and correspondents have separate film screenings. But if accredited they can certainly cover film conferences. But I am still waiting for any coverage of these usually very interesting film conferences, let alone descriptions of the competing films.

In other words, India coverage is limited to Indians. Although the Indian presence has progressed from a small room to a pavilion, one always hears of bargains and sellouts of Indian films in the offing. But if one follows them up, very little is really sold in the end. So if Karan Johar had to correct Aneesa Baig and tell her they were not on the Croisette, as she said, but on the beach, I have made my point that the Indian coverage of Cannes needs film experts and not Page 3 interviews.

At the other extreme, I was in awe of the TV correspondents in Srinagar who were covering the militant attack on the Congress party meeting. Some print and media correspondents narrowly escaped death while filing and even got hurt in the process. A big shabash to them. In fact I feel that what they were doing was beyond the call of duty and truly heroic. This seems to have been lost on the bright girls in the studios who were asking the most stupid questions while their correspondents were dodging bullets. How many militants are there, how many people have got injured, how many people have been killed and who were they?

In such situations it should surely be left to the correspondents to phone in what they can manage and not tie them down to answering such detailed and impossible specifics.

I remember when George Fernandes was Defence Minister and babus in Delhi were holding up essential clothing for our brave jawans in Siachen. He wanted to send the babus there to see how cold the place was. I think some of those great questioners from the studio end should be asked to cover crisis situations and, hopefully, they will spare the brave correspondents in the field and not ask silly questions.

One can be thankful that the coverage of the West Indies-India ODIs is being professionally done. There are top commentators from the old West Indies teams whose beautiful language is a delight. All the Indian commentators are professional cricketers and there are no sexy girls to clutter up the proceedings.

To see the legendary Lara at home, although at the time of writing he has done nothing spectacular, is a joy in itself. As are the West Indian crowds, with their song and dance, their drums and their sense of humour. They know their Indian stars well and I still chuckle at what some pretty young girls said to Sunil Gavaskar last time: “Sunil, you are still very sexy”. Now who but those lovely girls would have dared say that to Gavaskar, who responded with a fetching smile.