Never a ligger be!
Farrukh Dhondy
of which is discussing the production of a film from my novel The
Bikini Murders with the company that's announced their intention
to make it. Strictly speaking, this could have been done anywhere
in the world but since the company has films actually competing
in Cannes it seemed a good place for a rendezvous. My personal
rule is never go to Cannes as a spare part, a hanger-on or a ligger begging
for party invitations. Cannes is a cruel and competitive world.
The best way is for one's film to be invited in one of the competitions.
One is in those circumstances a guest of the festival and all doors open.
The next best is to be a buyer, a person who can genuinely view films
and make deals either to distribute or produce current and future projects.
Very many frauds and fakes turn up pretending to be buyers with
manufactured credentials and connections. They look busy on phones
and computers, play Movie Moghul for a week and disappear till the next
year. Thirdly, you can be a seller, meaning you seek the appointments
and buy the drinks, unless you happen to have the hottest property in
town ' in which case you needn't have come to Cannes.
I must confess that I have been in all three categories. In one particular
year there were two sets of producers attempting to get international
distributors for five films I'd written in the previous year, one of which
was Mangal Pande - The Rising and one of the others an international
film called Red Mercury. On the occasion I speak of an Indian TV reporter
stopped me in a Cannes street with "Mr. Dhondy, it's sensational you
have five films at Cannes!"
I said "That's good to know but news to me!"
"But that's what the Indian papers have reported."
"Have they? Then they don't know the difference between having films
at Cannes and bringing coals to Newcastle hoping to sell them. 'Having'
a film at Cannes means the film has been selected by the festival in one
of the competitive categories. None of the films I've written have been submitted to the competitions and they probably wouldn't have been
selected for exhibition anyway."
"Oh, but the newspapers said they had been."
"And that's probably ruined my life," I said.
She was puzzled.
"Why?"
"I'll never be able to go back to India now," I said. "All my creditors will
gather at the airports thinking I've come into hefty money." 😆
This year Cannes has been designated the festive spot for a hundred
years of Indian cinema. There are posters all over the festival to advertise
this anniversary. I tell everyone I meet that it's a fraud. Indian cinema
is at least 116 years old. The first Indian films were shot in 1899 and
1901 by Harish Bhatvadekar in Bombay. In the first years of the twentieth
century Hiralal Sen of Calcutta, a pioneer of then united Bengal, shot
a feature called Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Several documentaries
featuring Lord Curzon's Delhi Durbar, the inauguration of railways, the
return to India from Cambridge of the Indian mathematician 'wrangler'
Paranjpye were made and exhibited before 1913. OK, so we South Asians
famously fiddle birth dates and I suppose 2013 is as good a year for a centenary
as any. It should have been a bean-fest which included Pakistan
and Bangladesh, but perhaps the double-divorce has erased the memory
of such an anniversary.
I do my business, talking to the company which has bought the film
rights to my novel. The Indian newspapers have announced this cinematic
intention and they all say that my novel is based on the life and
serial murders of Charles Sobhraj. My character in the novel is called
Johnson Thaat.
Nevertheless my phone rings in Cannes. It's my Indian literary agent.
"Charles rang me from jail in Kathmandu. He says he'll sue you if you
make this film."(Sobhraj, with whom I am well acquainted, is serving a
life sentence for murder there).
"If he identifies with Johnson Thaat he'll have to say he is guilty of the
serial murders I describe. So, as the Australians say ' 'No worries, mate'".
I tell the producer about the call.
"Good publicity," he says.
And now I'm invited to ten parties, two or three a day. Maybe there'll
be one with at least two feet of red carpet on the stairs or somewhere. I'll
step on it and then tell the Indian newspapers that I have "walked the
red carpet in Cannes". 😆
Farrukh Dhondy's acclaimed first novel was Bombay Duck. He lives in London.
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