Music maestro AR Rahman, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, lyricist Prasoon Joshi, actors Nawazuddin Siddiqui, R Madhavan and Tamannaah Bhatia were among the Indian contingent which inaugurated the India Pavilion at Cannes Film Market on Wednesday.
Here's what they had to say about representing the country at the 75th Cannes Film Festival.
AR Rahman
Music maestro AR Rahman, whose directorial debut "Le Musk" premiered at the Cannes Film Market's Cannes XR programme, said he made the multisensory virtual reality film in English as he wanted to break barriers.
The two-time Oscar winner said, "The reason why I did this film in English language was to see whether it's possible to break those boundaries, to set a new bar. Even if it fails, it's fine."
Shekhar Kapur
Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur agreed with actor Deepika Padukone and said, "The next Cannes is in India."
"We are the land of stories… Earlier, we were dominated by the culture of the West… But now, the West is plateauing and the East is rising… Some culture, I'm not saying country, but one culture is going to pick up the predominant culture," the acclaimed filmmaker, also known for films such as Masoom, Mr India and The Bandit Queen, said.
Prasoon Joshi
Prasoon Joshi, also a lyricist and poet, said the process of filmmaking should be simplified so that dreams of aspiring artistes living in small and remote towns of the country come true. "We talk about diversity. How will we achieve diversity unless there's empowerment? That's what we should try and achieve when you go back from here…" he said.
R Madhavan
"But here I am today as an actor, director, writer and a producer with my debut and I cannot begin to explain the amount of nervousness I feel," the actor-filmmaker said.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Nawazuddin Siddiqui, star of Gangs of Wasseypur films and Netflix series Sacred Games, urged the government to extend support to "stories that are local but can work at the global level".
"There have been many instances when such films did well and received awards at film festivals like Cannes, but faced difficulties at the time of release back home. This pains me a lot because these kinds of films receive very little support. So I hope the government will extend support to these films also," he added.
Tamannaah Bhatia
Actor Tamannaah Bhatia likened getting the opportunity to attend the film gala as "beautiful" as her record-breaking film Baahubali. "Some of the most beautiful opportunities in my life have come to me when I've not been prepared for it, be it a film like Baahubali, which changed the way cinema is viewed in India today and opened windows for pan India firms. Being here at Cannes, it feels like exactly the same opportunity," she said.
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