FTII student’s film selected for Cannes’ La Cinef section
Entertainment Desk
“Sunflowers Were First Ones To Know,” a film by a student of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, has been selected in the La Cinef Competitive section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival to be held next month.
The film, directed by Chidananda S Naik, is the story of an elderly woman who steals the village's rooster, which throws the community into disarray. To bring the rooster back, a prophecy is invoked, sending the old lady's family into exile.
La Cinef is an official section of the festival aimed at encouraging new talents and recognises films from film schools across the world. The film is among 18 shorts (14 live-action and four animated films) selected from a total of 2,263 films submitted by film schools all over the world.
This is the only Indian film selected in the La Cinef section of Cannes. This is the first time a film by a student from a first-year Television course has been selected at the prestigious film festival.
This FTII film is a production of the TV Wing one-year programme where four students from different disciplines – direction, electronic cinematography, editing, and sound – worked together for one project as a year-end coordinated exercise. The film was shot by Suraj Thakur and edited by Manoj V, while its sound design was made by Abhishek Kadam.
