Anurag Kashyap’s latest thriller Raman Raghav 2.0 has been selected for Directors’ Fortnight, a programme that is held alongside the Cannes Film Festival (May 11-22). The film, whose international title is Psycho Raman, stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vicky Kaushal. Kashyap has previously shown Gangs of Wasseypur (2012) and Ugly (2013) in this section.
The title of Kashyap’s new movie refers to the 1960s serial killer Raman Raghav, who died while serving a life sentence in 1988. Kaushal plays a Mumbai police officer who captures a man who might just be the notorious deranged murderer. The movie will hit cinemas right after the festival on May 27.
Directors’ Fortnight was set up in 1969 as a sidebar to the main event. Its selection often includes titles that have been ignored by the official Cannes selectors for the main International Competition and Un Certain Regard sections, both of which are eligible for awards. Among the 17 other features chosen by the section’s artistic director Edouard Waintrop are Italian veteran Marco Bellocchio’s Sweet Dreams, about a boy coping with his mother’s death. Sweet Dreams will inaugurate Directors’ Fortnight. Also in is Endless Poetry, Chilean director Alejandro Jodorowsky’s autobiographical account of Bohemian culture in the 1940s. Chile’s other red-hot export, Pablo Larrain, is back with Neruda, a political thriller centred on the acclaimed writer’s flight from the law in the late ’40s.
Waintrop’s selections include Oscar winner Laura Poitras’s documentary Risk, in which she profiles Julian Assange, Rachid Djaidani’s Tour De France, an examination of racism, and Paul Schrader’s Dog Eat Dog, a neo-noir about two cons who reunite for one last score.
India has a negligible presence at the official Cannes festival this year. No film has made it to the Competition or Un Certain Regard sections. Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute student Saurav Rai’s Gudh has been selected for the other parallel section at Cannes, Cinefondation, which showcases entries from film schools from around the world. In a previous announcement, Asha Jaoar Majhe director Aditya Vikram Sengupta has been named as one of 16 directors chosen who will be part of the L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation, a talent laboratory aimed at emerging filmmakers from around the world.
Among the Indian films to have been featured in the Competition category in the past are V Shantaram’s biopic Amar Bhoopali in 1952, Raj Kapoor’s Awara in 1953, Bimal Roy ‘s Do Bigha Zamin in 1954, Satyajit Ray’s Devi in 1959, Mrinal Sen’s Genesis in 1986 and Shaji N Karun’s Swaham in 1994. In 2015, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan was selected for Un Certain Regard, and it won the jury prize for best debut feature.
The official competition reads like a who’s who of arthouse favourites, including Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World, Pedro Almodovar’s Julieta, Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, the Dardenne brothers’ The Unknown Girl, Oliver Assayas’s Personal Shopper and Jeff Nichols’s Loving. Also in competition are Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake, Cristian Mungiu’s Bacalaureat, Cristi Puiu’s Sieranevada and Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon.
The second most prestigious section at the festival, Un Certain Regard, includes Egyptian director Mohamed Diab’s Clash, Matt Ross’s Captain Fantastic and Kore-Eda Hirokazu’s After the Storm.
Among the films that will be shown out of competition are Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel The BFG, which be released in India on July 1, and Jodie Foster’s drama Money Monster, which will open in India on May 13. Woody Allen’s Cafe Society is the opening movie. Mad Max: Fury Road director George Miller is heading the jury that will pick the winners at the 69th edition of the most celebrated event of its kind in the world.