Shekhar Kapoor will start shooting for his international co-production Pani in November. This $30 million film will have an international cast and be shot in Singapore, Dubai and India. He announced this at the press conference in the iconic Carlton Hotel in Cannes.

Shekhar has conceived Pani as a love story, live action, musical thriller – as he put it. Water is becoming scarce and precious. It would become a weapon for economic, political and sexual control. The film will handle the possible effects of corporatisation of water, with companies taking over control over its distribution. The film is based on Maude Barlow’s novel Blue. Walkwater’s Manmohan Shetty and Swarovski Entertainment’s Alexander Koll also addressed the gathering.

Audience at Salle Debussy greeted the centenarian director Manoel de Oliviera with an affectionate, long, standing ovation when he presented his latest film The Strange Case of Angelica at the opening of the Un Certain Regard section.

The master had to request the audience several times to stop clapping and listen to him.

Isaac is a young photographer. In the middle of the night, he is asked by a wealthy family to take the last photograph of their daughter, Angelica, who died just a few days after her wedding. Isaac gets his first glimpse of Angelica and is overwhelmed by her beauty. When he looks at her through the lens of his camera, the young woman appears to come back to life just for him. Isaac instantly falls in love with her. From that moment on, Angelica will haunt him night and day, till his death. Is the film a supernatural thriller or the hallucination of a reserved individual?

However, excepting the wonderful camera work, it has nothing much to write about. It is the spirit of the filmmaker that carried the mood of the eclectic crowd.Im Sang-soo’s Korean film The Housemaid started and ended with a suicide.

The film is a remake of the 1960 classic of the same title by Kim Ki-young.Award winning actress Jeon Do-youn plays the role of the middle-aged housemaid. Her duty is to take care of the rich family’s young daughter and her pregnant mother Hae-ra. The master of the house physically exploits the maid who becomes pregnant with his child and the innocent maid wants to keep the baby.

The rich daughter and her mother successfully plot to abort her. The maid’s revenge is to commit suicide, in front of the entire family from the same chandelier from which she was pushed down. Is it to haunt the entire family for generations to come?

All are busy running from one screening to another, from one meeting to the next. Endless line up of cocktails and dinners dot the beach front, hotels and restaurants in this Riviera town and keep festival participants awake till the wee hours. From where do they find the energy to catch the early morning screening the next day?

Is it the passion for cinema that drives them during the festival?