Timbuktu, Titli and everything inbetween

All the action on Day 2 at the Cannes Film Festival.

Timbuktu denotes remoteness, even myth, in English.

It is actually a town in Mali.

It is also a riveting film in the high-fenced competition section at the Cannes film festival.

Timbuktu is directed by the celebrated Mauritanian Abderahmane Sissako, who part-wrote a script that tells of fundamentalist terror invading a land of open and tolerant Islam. It proposes no solutions, only leaving you a kaleidoscope of images that may be the start of understanding.

Sissako has the stunning Sahara going for him.

In the rolling dunes, herdsman Kidane lives with his family, a beloved daughter named Toya and, almost as beloved, a cow called GPS.

When GPS is killed, a tragic scenario unfolds.

In the background are swift brush strokes of an unmarried couple being stoned (it actually happened there in 2013) and a magical game of football played without a football (the game is forbidden by the invaders).

Kidane stoically accepts God’s law and Toya flees her persecutors, like the leaping doe which opens the film...  but where is she going?

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India’s institutional representation has opened their doors overlooking the dazzling blue Mediterranean sea: the official India Pavilion which is being coordinated by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the space run by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

CII chose to open shop in the Cannes Marche (market).

Bimal Julka, Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, welcomed a large crowd and Indian Ambassador Arun Singh spoke of the importance of India’s cinema in strengthening commercial and artistic ties with the world.

Mallika Sherawat brought glamour to the event, as did US producer-director Ashok Amritraj, who later threw a cocktail party on a yacht in the bay despite a threatening squall.

Titli -- produced by Yash Raj Films and directed by Kanu Behl -- has been invited to the prestigious Un Certain Regard section and premieres on May 20.

The film and its making evoked many comments from the panel at an event at the festival. But the discussion veered in another direction, taking up most time in the packed pavilion: Has India at last begun to happen as a notable element in world cinema?

Avtar Panesar of Yash Raj and especially the redoubtable film marketer Guneet Monga believe it has.

“We began to wonder after The Lunchbox, was it only a flash in the pan? But no, now there’s Titli, great quality and a promise of good returns,” said Monga.

India’s new cinema has begun to ring cash bells, it seems. For instance, The Lunchbox has turned Rs 22 crores in India, half a million pounds in the UK! There is now a commercial acceptance of films that were once only festival successes.”

Avtar Panesar made the point that where Indian films were once inward looking in content and commercial returns, we are now looking outwards and the rise of good new directors have had a lot to do with the trend.

Guneet had the last word: “Where cinema is a dicey business for film-makers, there is one party that always makes money: government.”