Cannes Classics Title ‘The Churning’: Inside the Restoration of 1976 Indian Masterpiece

Variety presents their favorite discoveries. Indian director Payal Kapadia’s second feature is a wise, gently lambent portrait of two roommates, both Mumbai nurses, at different points in their romantic lives. Spanning the city and the seaside, an understated yet profound bond grows between them despite different ages and outlooks, and both actresses are outstanding.

Naman Ramachandran LevelFilm has acquired a brace of festival favorite films from Metrograph Pictures for Canadian distribution. India Donaldson’s feature directorial debut “Good One” world premiered at Sundance and screened at the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. In the coming-of-age drama, 17-year-old Sam (Lily Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (James Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (Danny McCarthy).

Naman Ramachandran Cannes 2024 was a life-changing journey for Indian production designer-turned actor Anasuya Sengupta who won best actress at the festival’s Un Certain Regard strand for “The Shameless.” Sengupta made her acting debut alongside several of her friends in Anjan Dutt’s music-themed “Madly Bangali” (2009) and served as director’s assistant to Claire McCarthy in Australian production “The Waiting City” the same year. Kolkata native, Sengupta then moved to Mumbai, home to the vast Bollywood industry. She wasn’t impressed by Bollywood and became a noted production designer and artist instead.

EXCLUSIVE: “I’m not so good at this part, you know,” Indian megastar Prabhas tells Deadline on the set of upcoming mythological sci-fi movie Kalki 2898 AD.

Fly and flop getaways are all well and good, but if you want to burn off some of that breakfast buffet – and really explore the area you’re staying in – then a specialist walking holiday might be for you. With something for all fitness levels, these organised trips either involve staying at one hotel, which you set out from on foot every day, or moving between locations, with your luggage transported so it’s waiting for you at your next accommodation.

Members of an armed gang who slaughtered a DPD worker in a chilling 'public execution' were in the UK illegally, it can be revealed.

Sean Baker’s “Anora,” a comic but devastating Brooklyn odyssey about a sex worker who marries the son of a wealthy Russian oligarch, has won the Cannes Film Festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or.Baker accepted the prize with his movie’s star, Mikey Madison, watching in the audience at the Cannes closing ceremony Saturday. The win for “Anora” marks a new high point for Baker, the director of “The Florida Project.” It’s also, remarkably, the fifth straight Palme d’Or won by indie distributor Neon, following “Parasite,” “Titane,” “Triangle of Sadness” and last year’s winner, “Anatomy of a Fall.”“I don’t really know what’s happening right now,” said Baker.While “Anora” was arguably the most acclaimed film of the festival, its win was a slight surprise.

Of the many films set in India that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Payal Kapadia’s feature debut is the only one to focus on the country and its character, which it does by focusing on its most populated city, Mumbai. Like London, Paris and New York, Mumbai is a city of contrasts, a melting pot of castes and races, but of its 12.5 million citizens, over half are likely to live in extreme poverty. All We Imagine as Light tells the stories of the people on the breadline, those who are just about getting by, trying to hold onto their homes and their dignity as the city’s wealthy elite buy up and bulldoze their properties.

Chinese director Hu Guan’s drama Black Dog won the top Cannes Un Certain Regard Prize on Friday evening.

“All We Imagine As Light” opens as only a film set in Mumbai can— with the gradual unfurling of this massive metropolis at dawn. Its essential workers begin corralling the huge resources needed to maintain its creaking infrastructure and feed the tens of millions of people who will wake up and take public transport to work.

Good afternoon Insiders, Jesse Whittock back again to take you through the week’s news in the entertainment industry, as the Cannes Film Festival nears its close.

The Match Factory has finalized a raft of international deals for Coralie Fargeat’s Cannes Palme d’Or contender The Substance, following its buzzy premiere over the weekend in the presence of co-stars Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid.

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light landed a hearty eight minute standing ovation following its debut this evening at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Marta Balaga “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know…” from Chidananda S Naik, a student from FTII, Pune, India, has received La Cinef Award for best short, sparking thunderous applause, at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film, the director told Variety, was “challenging to shoot.” “We had only four days. I was basically told not to make this film.

Weird sisters have been spinning their witchy webs in stories dating back to Greek mythology, which included a macabre trio of sisters who passed a single eye between them. There is something of that sense of a closed circle of unknowable femininity between the two teenage girls in September Says, the first film to be directed by Greek Weird Wave actor Ariane Labed, based on the 2020 novel Sisters by Daisy Johnson and set between England and Ireland.

Katcy Stephan Indian Paintbrush founder Steven Rales has purchased Criterion and Janus Films. The mission and leadership of the companies will not change following the private transaction.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Sideshow and Janus films (“Drive My Car”) have acquired all North American rights to Payal Kapadia‘s “All We Imagine as Light,” the first Indian film to screen in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years. The movie will world premiere on Thursday, May 23. It’s also one of only four films in the Competition directed by a woman.

Naman Ramachandran Sandhya Suri’s fiction feature debut “Santosh,” which bows in the Cannes Film Festival‘s Un Certain Regard strand, has unveiled its first clip. In the film, a government scheme sees newly widowed Santosh inherit her slain husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of northern India.

Leo Barraclough International Features Editor Berlin-based sales agency Films Boutique has closed the first international sales for Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” ahead of its world premiere on Friday in the Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival. The film has been acquired in Italy by BiM Distribuzione and Lucky Red, Benelux by September Film Distribution, Spain by Bteam Pictures, Greece by Ama Films, Hungary by Cirko Film, Norway by Selmer Media, Portugal by Leopardo Filmes, Taiwan by Hooray Films and Turkey by Bir Film.

Mubi has swooped on its third 2024 Cannes competition title, Variety has learned. Having acquired worldwide rights to Coralie Fargeat’s buzzy body horror “The Substance” and U.K.