India misses out on Cannes prize

Cannes, France, May 26 (UNI) India's sole entry into this year's Cannes Film Festival missed its target when Raka Dutta's short-film, ''Chinese Whispers'', failed to win any award in the Cinefondation section.

The results were announced late yesterday.

Cinefondation looks at films made by students of film-schools in the various parts of the world. This year, only 16 films were selected for exhibition in that section out of about 1000 entries, and were adjudged by a special jury headed by Chinese Director Jia Zhangke.

The first prize for the best student-film went to an Argentinian film, ''Now Everybody Seems To Be Happy''.

Chinese film, ''Way Out'', by Chen Tao of the Beijing Film Academy bagged the second prized.

The third prize went jointly to ''A Reunion'' and ''Minus'' from South Korea and Serbia respectively.

Also missing out on a prize in the same section, along with Raka Dutta, was M Kummer, a French film-student whose film, ''Aditi Singh'', had been made in Hindi with Mumbai as the backdrop.

The attention now shifts to the big awards of the Festival, which would be announced over this week-end and given out during the closing ceremony tomorrow. These include the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) for the best film, Grand Prix given to the second- best film, awards for best director, actor, actress, and for the best script.

There is also a Jury prize for the best first-film in all of the official (and parallel) categories, there is the Camera d'Or (Golden Camera) award, which is also given out on that occasion.

The 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, which would have lasted over 12 days, comes to a close tomorrow.

UNI