Cannes

India's Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur, who is currently at the Cannes Film Festival and walked the red carpet leading the Indian delegation on day one of the festival, has his hands full as he proceeds to fulfil the dreams of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of projecting India as the "global content hub".

India is this year's country of honour at Cannes and the lone theme is "India, The Content Hub of the World". It will be a power packed schedule for Anurag Thakur on day two at Cannes Film Festival. In the morning Thakur will be holding meetings with Shivani Pandya, CEO, Red Sea Film Festival, Saudi Arabia to explore participation opportunities and exchange programmes and associations.

This festival was launched in 2019 and the festival mainly focuses on new storytelling trends. This theme goes very well with India as a nation of storytelling, articulated by PM Narendra Modi in his message for Cannes this year. The next scheduled meeting for India's Information and Broadcasting Minister is with Jerome Paillard and Guillaume Esmiol, Executive Directors of The Marche Du Film to explore further business partnerships with India. Thakur will next lead the inauguration of the Indian Pavilion at Cannes in the presence of several top Indian celebrities including Prasoon Joshi, Shekhar Kapur, AR Rahman among others.

The Union Minister brings the message of PM Modi to all those who would like to make films in India and associate with the Indian films with the central theme of India the content hub of the world. On Wednesday afternoon, Thakur will also tour the picturesque St Tropez, in Southern France. St Tropez has a huge cultural connection with India and is said to be an exotic location for film shoots. Thakur, will on this occasion explore tie-ups for Indian film shoots at this location and for business to business opportunities... India will be the official Country of Honour at the Marche' du Film, organized alongside the 75th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, in France. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed happiness about India's participation as 'Country of Honour' at the Cannes Film festival this year.

In a message, he noted that India's participation comes at the momentous meeting of celebration of 75 years of India's independence, the 75th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival and 75 years of diplomatic relations between India and France. Emphasising India's commitment to improve ease of doing business in the film sector, PM Modi said that from facilitating international film co-production to ensuring a single-window clearance mechanism for permissions for filming across the country, India offers seamless possibilities to filmmakers of the world.

This government had last year taken a novel initiative under the aegis of "Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav" to encourage and recognise young creative minds and budding talents in the country. For the first time ever, 75 creative minds representing gen-next cinema were picked to attend the 52nd International Film Festival of India in Goa.

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