Cannes celebrates Indian cinema’s 100 years celebration with Bombay Talkies

This year, 100 years of Indian cinema will also be celebrated at the 66^thCannes film festival opening on May 15. The festival will be having a special screening of the upcoming flickBombay Talkiesby four directors Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar. The film is not in the competition category but will be screened in India's honour.

The competition has 19 films in total and the main jury will be heading the contest. Cine Foundation and short film sections will be headed by Nandita Das. The festival will commence withThe Great Gatsby,a film byBaz Luhrmanns starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Amitabh Bachchan. Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Tannishtha Chatterjee’sMonsoon Shootoutis considered as a tough competition in Camera d'Or category directed by Amit Kumar.

Thierry Fremaux, an artistic director and Giles Jacob, President who announced the official selections in Paris informed about the non-competitiveness of Indian films, "Indian cinema is in great health as we and you celebrate 100 years of your cinema. The Director's Fortnight and Critic's week I believe are also considering some Indian films, not just to pay homage but for their competition. They had some films last year too," said Fremaux. The director added, "You are focussing on the competition, like many others tend to do. We didn't find an Indian film that suited our taste. We are perhaps wrong or right. We will have, as is the tradition, a member in the jury. There are 150 countries in the United Nation so there aren't just Indian films. Indian films have often been honoured in the last few years at Cannes."