CANNES was setting up for Wednesday’s (May 15) big opening film, The Great Gatsby, with Amitabh Bachchan due to put in an appearance both at a press conference and later at the red carpet gala screening.
In the Cannes market, the posters were projecting the Indian films that will be shown in the next few days, from Satyajit Ray’s Charulata to Amit Kumar’s Monsoon Shootout, Ritesh Batra’s The Lunch Box, Anurag Kashyap’s Ugly and Bombay Talkies.
Later there was to be press conference, with Vidya Balan due to appear in front of the world press. A great deal of interest will focus on the jury president, Steven Spielberg, and on Nicole Kidman, who is one of the jury members.
Bachchan’s is only a small part but no matter. He will be bathing in reflected glory by appearing alongside some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including Leonardo DiCaprio and the director, Baz Luhrmann.
An excited businessman, Prakash Hinduja, who is Srichand Hinduja’s younger brother, said he would fly in from Geneva ‘because I am going to the gala screening – Amitabh Bachchan will be there’.
The film attracted lukewarm reviews after it premiered in America but the opening will certainly be well covered since there are some 4,000 journalists flooding into Cannes from all over the world.
A superslick glossy brochure on The Great Gatsby, adapted from the novel by F Scott Fitzgerald, has been placed in the pigeon holes of all the prominent journalists.
Among the cast members, DiCaprio merits a two-page write up and there are lengthy mentions, too, of Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke and Elizabeth Debicki.
Sadly, in 49 pages of film notes, the number of mentions that the Big B gets is zero. No doubt, it’s an oversight.
