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It's been a good Cannes for India this year!
The Theatre Lumiere echoed to thunderous ovations as the awards were announced at the end of the 68th Cannes International Film Festival.
The glances exchanged were most numerous when the top award -- the Palme d’Or -- went to Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan.
In the picture: French director Jacques Audiard (centre) poses with Sri Lankan actor Jesuthasan Antonythasan and actress Kalieaswari Srinivasan during a photocall in Cannes. Photograph: Ian Gavan/Getty Images
After all, the film was up against four titles from French directors, three Italians, a Greek, a Hungarian, a Chinese and a Japanese.
One of the best films at the festival, the film tells the story of an LTTE fighter, who watches his side losing the battle.
He escapes, taking with him a woman and a child who he hopes will improve his chances of asylum.
He gets a job on the outskirts of Paris but the daily violence he confronts brings out the fighter in him to protect what he hopes will become his real family.
The film movingly depicts how the three strangers come together first in affection, and then in love.
Jesuthasan Antonythas works as a prolific writer but his performance in the film, under the inspiring hand of Audiard, points to an entirely new direction in his life and career.
The Grand Prix awarded to Laszlo Nemes’ Saul Fia was widely expected. It tells a harrowing story, well-detailed and performed, of Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp.
Saul, enlisted as a worker there, sees a body he believes to be his son. He saves it from the ovens in the wild hope that he will locate a Rabbi to pronounce the kaddish over the boy. Will he succeed? Will the revolt of the prisoners work?
In a remarkable twist of direction, script and photography, the grim tale ends on a glimpse of hope.
It has been a good Cannes for India.
Neeraj Ghaysan’s Masaan won the FIPRESCI award as well as the Most Promising Director’s prize in the Un Certain Regard section.
In Un Certain Regard was another Indian contestant, Chauthi Koot (The Fourth Direction).
Christian Jeune , the all-powerful Director Films of the Festival, saw that two Indian films chosen for Un Certain Regard was something to celebrate. “I was pleased not just with these two films but also with the quality of the films that were not selected,” he said.
Rossy de Palma, the Mexican on the jury, said that watching two films a day was thrilling.
“It was like making love to cinema all day,” she said.