While no Indian film could make it to the Official Competition and the Un Certain Regard sections of the 74th Cannes Film Festival, Rahul Jain’s “shocking documentary” on New Delhi’s pollution, titled “Invisible Demons”, has made it to a special section on films highlighting global environmental concerns, the festival has announced.

“In 2021 and given the urgency of the situation, protecting the environment is at the heart of the Festival de Cannes‘ preoccupations, reflected up to its Official Selection. The Selection was already bearing that mark, when in 2007, Al Gore was invited for his documentary An Inconvenient Truth that brought him an Oscar and to numerous other films, including those produced by Leonardo DiCaprio,” the festival said in its announcement.

The festival announcement said this about Jain’s documentary: “A shocking documentary about pollution in New Delhi, India, and the “invisible demons” that are the fine particles. Rahul Jain’s camera tries to breathe as it makes its way through this ecological hell, giving us both something to see and something to think about.”

“While the Festival has taken a series of measures, the ecology of hope will also feature on the screens of the Croisette. As a way of embodying this commitment, the 74th edition of the Festival de Cannes has chosen an ephemeral selection of films on the environment,” it said.

The package features one fiction film and six documentaries. The other films in the package are “La Croisade” (The Crusade) by Louis Garrel (France) and co-written by the late Jean-Claude Carrière, “Marcher sur l’eau” (Above Water) by Aïssa Maïga (Niger-France), “Animal” by Cyril Dion (France), “I Am So Sorry” by Zhao Liang (China), “Bigger Than Us” by Flore Vasseur (France), and “La Panthère des neiges” by Marie Amiguet (France).

Meanwhile, “A Night of Knowing”, the new feature film by FTII alumi Payal Kapadia, whose short film “Afternoon Clouds” competed in the student film section Cinefondation in 2017, will be screened at the prestigious sidebar section Directors’ Fortnight, which runs parallel to the main Cannes Film Festival.

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About Utpal Borpujari

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Utpal Borpujari is a National Film Award winning filmmaker and film critic. He won national award for his debut feature film 'Ishu'.