The film will be screened in the Un Certain Regard section.
Nandita Das’s biographical drama Manto has been selected in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. The Un Certain Regard category typically features 20 films that tell unique stories in non-traditional ways.
The announcement was made today along with the rest of the line-up by festival director Thierry Fremaux in Paris. The 71st edition will be held between May and 19. Cate Blanchett is the president of the festival’s official competition jury.
Das’s film traces the career of author Saadat Hasan Manto in Mumbai and Pakistan after the Partition. The movie stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Manto, Rasika Dugal as Manto’s wife Safia, Rajshri Deshpande as author Ismat Chughtai, and Tahir Raj Bhasin as Manto’s friend and Hindi film hero Shyam. Also in the cast are Paresh Rawal and Rishi Kapoor.
The poster was unveiled at Cannes in 2017. Das also directed a short film, In Defence of Freedom, as a prelude to Manto.
The festival will open with Asghar Farhadi’s Spanish-language thriller Everybody Knows, starring Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Ricardo Darin.
Among the films in the special screenings section are Gilles Porte’s documentary The State Against Mandela and The Others, 10 Years in Thailand, which has contributions from Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnon Sriphol and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, and Wim Wenders’s documentary, Pope Francis – A Man of his Word.
Netflix will boycott the festival to protest films produced by streaming platforms from being banned from the competition section, Chief Content officer Ted Sarandos told Variety .
(More details expected).
