CANNES, MAY 22 : Two short films set in India are in the running for the top prize in the competition for film schools around the world at the 77th Cannes Film Festival.

“Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know”, a Kannada short film based on a Banjara folk tale, directed by Chidananda S Naik represents the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, while “Bunnyhood” by Mansi Maheshwari is an entry from the National Film and Television School (NFTS) in the United Kingdom.

Naik, who passed out of FTII last year, is based in Mysuru. The Meerut-born Maheshwari, an alumnus of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Delhi, is a student of NFTS in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.

“Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know” and “Bunnyhood” are part of 18 short films selected to La Cinef section of the Cannes festival from among 2,263 entries submitted by film schools across the world this year.

The 16-minute Kannada language film, “Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know” (original Kannada title is Suryakanthihooge modhalugothagidhu), is based on a popular folk tale in Karnataka in southern India, about a village plunging into darkness after an elderly woman runs away with a rooster whose crowing caused the sun to rise every morning.

“The film tells the story of a grandmother who thinks the sun rises because of her rooster. Determined to teach a lesson to disrespecting villagers, she takes the rooster and vanishes into a forest,” says Naik, a doctor-turned-filmmaker.

“I want to be a full-time filmmaker and will continue my medical practice to help the poor,” adds Naik, who joined FTII’s one-year course in direction in the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

“When I left my medical practice at the Krishna Rajendra Government Hospital in Mysuru to join the FTII my parents didn’t talk to me for several months. They, however, supported me to come to the Cannes festival to screen my film,” says Naik about his dream of pursuing filmmaking.

At the Cannes festival, Naik was joined by his production team and FTII batchmates Suraj Thakur (cinematography), Abhishek Khadam (sound) and Pranav Sangli (production designer), all from Maharashtra.

‘Bunnyhood’ by Maheshwari, who was born in Meerut in north India, is a nine-minute animation film created at NFTS. “It is based on a true story, a coming of age tale and explores the relationship between me and my mother,” says Maheshwari.

Based on cell animation which uses layers of paper for the drawings, ‘Bunnyhood’ is made of nearly 9,000 frames. “I want to return to India and set up an animation studio in Goa,” says Maheshwari.(UNI)