India's Moment at Cannes

As Cannes 2025 is all set to celebrate the best of global cinema, India, too, is making its presence felt as a powerful co-creator of cinematic brilliance

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As the azure waters of the French Riviera prepare to reflect the flashing cameras and cinematic dreams of the 78th Cannes Film Festival (May 13-24, 2025), the festival's official selection and jury reveal a lineup as compelling as it is transformative. This year's curation, bursting with auteur signatures, daring narratives, and geopolitical subtext, reaffirms Cannes' position as the global north star for storytelling in flux.

But perhaps what's most striking in this edition is India's amplified presence, not merely as a participant, but as a co-author of cinema's global conversation.

The official competition is a masterclass in balance; between legacy auteurs and new-voice renegades, between personal memory and historical magnitude. Wes Anderson returns with The Phoenician Scheme, a stylistic exploration of ancient mythologies meeting cold war intrigue. Ari Aster's Eddington, already dubbed his most restrained yet haunting work, has set cinephile circles ablaze. Julia Ducournau's Alpha explores post-human femininity in a world on the brink of biological redesign.

Also in the mix: Richard Linklater's New Wave, a love letter to the late French New Wave era, filtered through Texan eyes. Kelly Reichardt's The Mastermind subverts the true crime genre with startling quietude, while Iranian dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi's A Simple Accident is said to be his most autobiographical and subtly political work to date.

Out of competition, the buzz is electric around Spike Lee's Highest 2 Lowest, a reimagining of Kurosawa's