10 Indian films that won awards at Cannes Film Festival over the years

Payal Kapadia's documentary won the Oeil d'Or for the Best Documentary at Cannes 2021. Kapadia's film gave an insight into student life in Universities in India, where L a film school student writes letters to her estranged lover who has been thrown out the college and who family does not want him to be with L as she is from a lower cast. 
 

Neeraj Ghaywan's hauntingly beautiful film featuring Richa Chadha, Vicky Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi won two prizes at Cannes 2015- FIPRESCI, International Jury of Film Critics prize and Promising Future prize in the Un Certain Regard section.The film narrated the story set in small town India spoke of societal pressures, caste system and modernisation amid a conservative society. 
 

Ritesh Batra's unusual love story of a lonesome bachelor and a equally lonely and unhappy housewife tug heartstrings of viewers across. The Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur starrer won the Critics Week Viewers Choice Awards. 

Directed by Mirali Narayan, the Malayalam film won the prestigious Camera d'Or. A deeply haunting film on class divide, the film was a story of a farmer who is wrongly implicated and jailed for a murder he has not committed and has been sentenced to electrocution- a first in his state. 
 

Mira Nair's film on the underbelly of Bombay city won her  Camera d'Or. The film set in the by lanes of Bombay, now Mumbai, narrated the story of a rag picker and a psotitute of a brothel who develop an uncanny bond with each other. 
 

The Bengali film by Mrinal Sen won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes 1983. Starring Anjan Dutta and Mamata Shankar in the lead, 'Kharij' narrated the story of a middle-class family whose child servant, Palan is found dead in their kitchen and their efforts to pacify his grieving father. Guiilty of neglecting him and of the police investigations, the family must now face their innner demons. 
 

Satyajit Ray's cult classic, also his first feature film, won the prestigious Palm d'Or for best Human Document. The film narrates the story a young boy Apu and his elder sister Durga amidst the harsh village life of their poor family. The film is considered one of the classics of Indian cinema and revered till date

The only Indian film which won accolades at the festival for its actor. Child actor Naaz won the Special Distinction Prize at Cannes 1954. The film was directed by Prakash Arora and produced by Raj Kapoor and narrated the story of two orphaned kids who are forced into begging on the streets of Bombay by their aunt after their mother passes away. 

Director Bimal Roy made the cult-classic Do Bigha Zameen in the very early years of his career and how effectively he told the story of a poor farmer, who forcibly did a job of rickshawala in Kolkata to save his village land from the industrialist. The film earned laurels worldwide and went on to become the first Indian film to win the International Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1954.
 

Many people don't know that Chetan Anand's 1946 film Neecha Nagar was the first and only Indian film to win the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film, now known as Palme d'Or - the award which has been considered one of the highest honours in cinema.