Onir: Atleast post about the films you watched at Cannes, and not just your clothes!

Onir always believes in calling a spade a spade. And he had something to say about the India presence at the Cannes film festival recently too. He took to Twitter and shared, “Never got it why people go to #CannesFilmFestival just to be clicked wearing all kinds of costumes( very often strange) when they don’t have any of their films screening, Nor are they passionate about watching films and panel discussions. Does one really feel good doing this?”

When we ask him more about it, he says, “What pushed me to tweet this is the realisation that people put pics of them wearing so many clothes there, no one is really talking much about the films that are there. Some of the best films from across the world are screened there. So how come we as industry people are so little interested in what the festival is actually celebrating? All everyone is focusing on is clothes, who cares?”

What the filmmaker is also not able to wrap his head around is that people going from here don’t wear something which represents their culture on the global platform. “Most of them, whatever they wear, it’s not even like as if it’s representing the country’s tradition, culture, the fashion. Someone tweeted ‘it’s important to be seen’, but it makes no difference to the world, if they get photographed there. What matters is the work, I would want to hear more about our films than this ,” adds Onir.

“Is anyone talking about the amazing filmmakers from Manipur and Assam who went there? If we really care about cinema, the centre focus is films, no? I have no grudge against people, anyone can go. But watch some films, which the space is all about. People dress up… atleast post about the film that you watched in the theatres there and not the clothes you wore outside it. People don’t even enter the theatre, they pose and walk back,” laughs the 54-year-old, whose film Pine Cone will open the Kashish Film Festival in June.