Indian film “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know,” directed by Chidanand Naik, a student of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, won the La Cinef Award for Best Short at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in France.

“Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know” is a 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. 

The winner was officially announced on 23 May at the festival where Naik received the award.

The film has been shot by Suraj Thakur, edited by Manoj V and sound by Abhishek Kadam.

‘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 was among 18 shorts (14 live-action and 4 animated films) selected from a total of 2,263 films submitted by 555 film schools all over the world.

The award for Naik came four years after another FTII student’s film ‘Catdog” won an award at the 73rd Cannes Festival.

The 77th Cannes Film Festival witnessed multiple entries from India in different categories. Many of the FTII’s alumni like Payal Kapadia, Maisam Ali, Santosh Sivan, Chidanand S Naik and his team received recognition at this years’ Cannes.

This FTII film is a production of the TV Wing’s one-year programme where four students from direction, electronic cinematography, editing and sound worked together for one project as a year-end coordinated exercise.

This is the first time a film by a student from a one-year television course of FTII has been selected and won at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival.