Cannes: As the Indian contingent at the 69th Cannes Film Festival welcomes Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan and Sonam Kapoor, other B-town stars are doing their bit in and around the Palais des Festivals.
Aishwarya walked the Cannes red carpet in an embellished couture gown by Kuwait’s designer Ali Younes while Sonam will attend the festival tomorrow. Both are brand ambassadors of French cosmetics giant L’Oreal.
Shahana Goswami, part of the cast of Tu Hai Mera Sunday, which is set for a Marche du Film (Cannes Film Market) screening later in the week, is already here. Shahana turned up for the opening film of Directors’ Fortnight, Marco Bellocchio’s well-received “Sweet Dreams”, on May 12.
Actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan |
The actress also put in an appearance at the Palais on Friday morning in support of the market screening of “Force of Destiny”, directed by Australia’s best-known arthouse filmmaker Paul Cox.
Shahana plays a key role in the film, which is a fictionalized exploration of the director’s brush with cancer and an agonizing wait for a life-saving liver transplant. Also in the cast of “Force of Destiny” is Seema Biswas, who has a film in Cannes Critics’ Week this year. She is due to arrive ahead of the May 18 official premiere of the film, “A Yellow Bird”, directed by Indian-origin Singaporean K Rajagopal.
Both Aishwarya and Sonam will do more than just walk the red carpet. They are promoting a film each in the Cannes Film Market.
While Omung Kumar’s upcoming Sarbjit, starring Aishwarya, Randeep Hooda and Richa Chadda, will be screened for the press here on two consecutive days, Sonam will be representing Ram Madhvani’s Neerja, which also screens in the market.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Vicky Kaushal are due to reach Cannes with the team of Anurag Kashyap’s “Raman Raghav 2.0”, which premieres in Directors’ Fortnight on May 16.
On the opening day of the festival, Mallika Sherawat was on the red carpet for the screening of Woody Allen’s “Café Society”.
The following day, the actress joined the producers of Hong Kong director Daniel Lee’s “Time Raiders” to promote the film in Cannes. Mallika plays a sorceress in the action film.
