🎥 Indian film ‘Homebound’ by Neeraj Ghaywan is in prestigious Un Certain Regard (UCR) category
🎥 Stars Ishaan Khatter, Vishal Jethwa and Janhvi Kapoor; executive producer is Bollywood icon and Indian chat show host Karan Johar
🎥 It is Ghaywan’s second appearance at Cannes following success of ‘Masaan’ in 2015
🎥 See the page on ‘Homebound’ – here
🎥 www.asianculturevulture.com celebrates 10 years of making videos in Cannes – see all the stars who made it front of our cameras in Cannes – unofficial award if you can name them all! (See below)
🎥 Connect with us if you are going to be in Cannes – see tab below and other ways of connecting directly for Cannes only…
🎥 Festival de Cannes, its official title, runs from May 13-24 – just over three weeks away from the opening now …
There will be more than a smattering of Bollywood sprinkle in official selection this year…
SO, THE TUXEDOS are being dusted down and the bow ties are being packed and that sun hat is among the luggage you might need for the 78th Cannes Film Festival.
And of course, in true asianculturevulture style – a sherwani (or white mundu) but don’t forget the bow tie, whatever you do!*
All the official selections have now been announced with the two sidebars disclosed – Directors Fortnight and Critics Week were revealed on Monday (April 14) and Tuesday last week, respectively.
The main Competition and Un Certain Regard selections were revealed to the world on April 10 in Paris by General Delegate Thierry Frémaux and Festival de Cannes President Iris Knobloch.
There was a welcome return for Indian writer-director Neeraj Ghaywan, whose ‘Homebound’ will enjoy its world premiere in the UCR selection, which also has three interesting home-grown UK selections – British Nigerian ‘My Father’s Shadow’ by Akinola Davies Jr; gay biker drama, ‘Pillion’ by Harry Lighton and already well-known British actor’s directorial debut ‘Urchin’ by Harris Dickinson. The same section also Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Eleanor the Great’ – a contemporary drama about a 90-year-old woman moving to New York and befriending a 19-year old student.
There is a nice symmetery for us too, as Ghaywan’s ‘Masaan’ won two awards in 2015 in the same UCR section. It won the title of Most Promising Film from the UCR judges and International critics also bestowed the Fipresci (the international federation of film critics) award on the film.
Elsewhere in Competition, there is huge buzz around auteurs such as Wes Anderson (‘The Phoenicians Scheme’); The Dardennes Brothers (Jeunes Mères); Julia Ducournau returns with ‘Alpha’ after her Palme winner, ‘Titane’ in 2021; Richard Linklater (‘New Wave’), Jafar Panahi (‘Un Simple Accident’), Tarik Saleh (‘Aigles of the Republic’), Sergei Loznitsa (‘Two Prosecutors’). There are 19 films in Competition this year. (For the full lists, both Competition and UCR, see the link below).
for last week’s Vishu & Tamil New Year Festivals
The festival will open with ‘Partir Un Jour’ by Amélie Bonnin. The French film is about a woman going back to her home village following the passing of her father and leaving Paris just as she is about to embark on opening her first restaurant.
Not too much is known about ‘Homebound’ beyond some Instagram posts about it. It is about friendship, reportedly – more in our story.
Ishaan Khatter has Bollywood pedigree – he is the half brother of another star actor, Shahid Kapoor.
Most recently, Khatter featured in the Hollywood drama, ‘The Perfect Couple’ and can be seen in Netflix’s ‘The Royals’ which will drop on the platform on May 9, it was announced recently.
Khatter talking about Homebound being selected for Cannes, reacted: “A film that I knew was special from the moment it entered my life and my most challenging part yet.”
Ghaywan, for his part, simply took to Instagram to drop a poster recognising it had been chosen to screen in Cannes.
Underneath a poster from Dharma Productions, it read: “We are deeply honoured & delighted to have our film officially selected for the Festival de Cannes 78th edition in the Un Certain Regard category,
“It gives us immense pride to be representing our country & Indian cinema on a prestigious global platform.”
Ghaywan’s first outing in Cannes in 2015 was ours too. (See the link below).
Elsewhere, there is a short – ‘Bleat!’ which is from Malaysia and has been included in Critics Week. It’s made by Malaysian Tamil Ananth Subramaniam and is the first time a Tamil Malaysian story has come to Cannes. The 15-minute film is about a couple’s goat which is being prepped for slaughter, when they discover she is pregnant.
Last year there were four films and one major award which we all reported on – from ‘All We Imagine as Light’, ‘Santosh’, ‘The Shameless’, ‘Sister Midnight’ and Santosh Sivan’s cinematography reward made it a spectacular Cannes – with Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ walking away with the de facto runner-up prize to the indie cult hit, ‘Anora’ by bagging The Grand Prix prize – we were there!
So Roll on Cannes 2025…
*Got told off for not having a bow tie despite being in a black sherwani
Our cannes 10
In 2015 we went for just five days and interviewed Bollywood megastars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor back to back and on our last day – just hours before our plane home to London. We also interviewed Nandita Das, who talked about raising funds for her film, ‘Manto’ – which had its world premiere in Cannes in 2018 and we were there again.
This year, we will be in Cannes for the whole duration (May 13-24) and look out for announcements on how we are going to be marking our 10 years.
We have a bigger team for the whole festival in 2025 and can do more!
So don’t be shy now…especially if you are going to be in Cannes yourself.
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If you want to know about our Cannes over the year, watch this
