“Sunflowers Were First Ones To Know,” a film by astudent of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune, has been selected in “La Cinef” competitive section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival to be held next month.
The film, directed by Chidananda S Naik, 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 ‘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 4 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 ‘La Cinef’ section of Cannes. This is the first time a film by a student from first-year Television course has been selected at the prestigious 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 is shot by Suraj Thakur, edited by Manoj V and sound by Abhishek Kadam.