The Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight will host the global premiere of Kanu Behl’s Agra
Kanu Behl’s Agra
Kanu Behl, an Oscar-winning filmmaker, will be showing his next Hindi film, Agra, at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. The premiere will take place in the independent film area known as Directors’ Fortnight at the famed film extravaganza.
Agra, co-written by Behl and Atika Chohan, is Behl’s follow-up to his 2014 Cannes debut feature Titli, which also had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section. The film examines the sexual dynamics of a family and the dystopian cracks that modern India’s narrowing social spaces have generated.
Agra features an impressive ensemble cast that includes Rahul Roy, Priyanka Bose, debutante Mohit Agarwal, and supporting players like Ruhani Sharma, Vibha Chibber, Sonal Jha, and Aanchal Goswami.
For me, “Agra” has been an intensely private and challenging journey into the guts of desire and masculine sexual inhibition, and an attempt to make sense of “hoodoo.” With more exposure, “I hope it opens a conversation about sexuality and the ‘homes’ we choose to live in,” Behl said in a statement. It is a tremendous honour for us to have Agra make its world premiere during the Directors’ Fortnight. We like to think of ourselves as a studio that is not afraid to take risks with its movies, and Agra is a prime illustration of this. The issue was important to Kanu Behl, and we’re happy to have worked on this project with him. As the senior vice president of films and events of Saregama India Ltd., Siddharth Anand Kumar is excited to see how the film is received at Cannes.
The making of Agra was a “incredible adventure,” as William Jehannin of UFO Production put it. “I feel deeply honoured to have collaborated with an Indian artist like Kanu Behl for the creation of his film,” Jehannin said of working with Behl. “The subject is both intensely local and global.”
The famous Cinema du Monde film fund helped create the picture during its time at the PJLF Three Rivers residence project in Italy. At NFDC’s Film Bazaar 2022, it was a component of the FBR area of the Viewing Room. From May 16th through the 27th, the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival will take place.
