Sobhapati Samom
IMPHAL, May 10 – Manipur’s award winning documentary filmmaker and director Haobam Paban Kumar and five others have been enlisted for the Cannes Film Festival.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting selected Paban Kumar along with five Indian filmmakers for the Cannes Festival and include Dibakar Banerjee, Anurag Kashyap, Anusha Rizvi, Laxmikant Shetgaonkar and Sekhar Kummula.
The selected filmmakers will leave for the French resort town to attend the Festival being held from May 12 to May 18. The Manipuri filmmaker would be the second from the State to attend such a big gathering of global film celebrities after Aribam Syam, noted film maker. “I feel so happy for getting such an opportunity to explore the global films scenario in Cannes”, Pabankumar said. The participation in the Cannes is aimed to promote the brand of Indian cinemas with emphasis on its regional diversity.
The National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) on behalf of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is setting up an ‘India Pavilion’ at the Cannes Festival.
Pabankumar’s award winning documentary ‘Mr India’ was screened at the Asiada Film Festival in Kazakhstan recently. The documentary was based on the life of a HIV positive body builder in Manipur.