India has won an award at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Mysuru-based filmmaker Chidananda S Naik has received the award. His film Sunflowers Were the First Ones to Know has won the La Cinef Award. He had done a one-year course in the television wing of the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. The film, based on the life story of a woman from the Karnataka folk community, has won him the award. The third prize of La Cinef also went to Indians.
The award was given to Indian-origin woman Mansi Maheshwari, who made the animation film Bunnywood. Maheshwari was born in Meerut. She studied at NFTA Delhi. She also studied at the National Film and Television School in the UK. The second prize in the La Cinef awards went to Colombia University director Asya Segolovich.
The prize money for the first prize is 15,000 euros. The second prize winner gets 11,250 euros and the third prize winner gets 7,500 euros. The award-winning films will be screened at the Cinema du Pantheon theater on June 3. This is the second time in the last five years that India has won the first prize at the La Cinef Awards. In 2020, FTII’s Asmita Guha Niyogi won the award. She made the film Cat Dog.