The oomph factor: Nandana Sen

Cleavage on the Croisette

When an unknown sex pest passed Nandana Sen a handwritten note while we were chatting in the bar of the Carlton Hotel, she sensed immediately what it said without having to open the envelope.“It’s a love note,” she sighed wearily.

The letter, which she read aloud, was from a man who declared he liked making connections with “unique people” and if she would call him or send him an SMS on his mobile phone — his card was included — he would be happy to buy her a cup of coffee. “Of course, I won’t,” snapped Nandana.

On her first day in Cannes, she had looked ravishingly Bengali in a blue sari. Now she looked elegantly European in a little black number, worn with a fetching white hat and a generous cleavage.

Though in Cannes to promote her new movie, Ketan Mehta’s Colours of Passion, in which she plays the painter Raja Ravi Varma’s muse, Sugandha, she found time to discuss possible future projects.

Although home these days tends to be more Bombay than New York, she has been invited to serve on the jury at the Kazakhstan Film Festival in September.

I didn’t know Kazakhstan had a film festival but it is a young country trying to shake off the image created by Borat Sagdiyev, the fictional Kazakhstani journalist portrayed by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, in his mockumentary, Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.

Amartya Sen’s daughter certainly appears blessed with a sense of humour evident on a sunny afternoon when we went for a stroll and an ice cream on the Croisette.

Perhaps there is a hidden sculptor in her for as she licked her cone, an intriguing shape began to emerge made entirely of chocolate and strawberry icecream.

Suddenly, as she became aware of what she was doing, she stopped and laughed: “It looks like a phallic symbol.” The man who sent her the note might have been attracted by her seductive laugh.

Now there’s the plot of a murder mystery in there somewhere.

Ubiquitous: Angelina Jolie in a still from the movie, The Exchange

Jolie good time

Clearly, this has been Angelina Jolie’s Cannes. For her role in the animation movie, Kung Fu Panda, in which she does the voice for a fighter called Tigress, she merited the customary photo shoot, press conference and red carpet treatment. Then, because she has also starred in the Clint Eastwood-directed thriller, The Exchange (previously called Changeling), she managed to repeat the whole exercise.

As it is, she got extra publicity by announcing she and Brad Pitt were expecting twins, the first couple in the world to do so. By hinting she might have the delivery in France, she may have ingratiated herself into French affections.

Last year she was at Cannes, it is worth remembering, to promote her portrayal of Mariane Pearl in A Mighty Heart, shot largely in Pune.

All this raises the question whether she suffers as an actress because she is simply too well known. Those much photographed lips, for example, are now instantly recognisable. The critics in Cannes have justly praised her role in The Exchange, in which she plays a mother whose son goes missing in 1920s Los Angeles. Another boy is given to her several months later by police officers who insist it is her missing son when she knows he isn’t.

I am sure the film will do well but watching her on screen, I was aware at all times that I was looking at Angelina Jolie playing a distraught mother. Every time I glanced at the TV monitors in Cannes — and there are a lot of them — there was Angelina Jolie hogging attention yet again. Such fame has become a doubled-edged weapon.

New Beginning: Sheena Bhattessa with Ketan Mehtapricey

Cannes opener

Among the hundreds of young actresses visiting Cannes for the first time was Sheena Bhattessa from London, who met Dev Anand eating a sandwich on the Croisette and threatening to return next year with a film in competition and Ketan Mehta hosting what turned out to be this year’s big Indian party.

Lakshmi Mittal was also due to host a party on his yacht, which is said to be even longer than the Hindujas’ boat, but it was due to be held when the festival was nearly over.

Sheena said that she flew into Cannes knowing almost no one and leaving with a clutchful of useful contacts. She also spotted a £600 dress that she wanted but by the time she had cleared the purchase with an indulgent father in London (he is in the hotel business), she returned to find it gone.

She told me of another disappointment. She had actually signed the contract to play an Indian princess in a British television series, Sharpe’s Peril, but it was cancelled abruptly at the last minute. I had to break the news to Sheena that her loss had been Nandana Sen’s gain. The two girls were at the same party so it could have been claws out. Just joking, for both are well brought up.

Back in London, where Sheena also works in public relations, one of her tasks will be to promote Jagmohan Mundhra’s Shoot on Sight. But Cannes has made her wonder whether she should not devote all her time to movies.

“As an actress and upcoming film-maker, this is definitely the ideal place to make your presence and meet the right people,” she said. “Daunting, thrilling and invigorating, all together! The festival was certainly an experience that I will cherish and remember. For me, this was an exciting time as an Indian actress hoping to break through into the field of crossover movies.”

Yorkshire revisited

Screen Yorkshire promises to help Indian crews looking for suitable locations in the stunningly beautiful and varied countryside of Yorkshire just as it has done for the movie, Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh’s 1945 novel set among the English aristocracy in 1925.

Brideshead Revisited, which was made as a series in 1981, is considered one of the triumphs of British television. As with the TV series, the feature film has also been shot at Castle Howard, one of the great historic houses of England.

Following the staging of last year’s IIFA in the county, Screen Yorkshire, the Yorkshire Tourist Board and the development agency, Yorkshire Forward, are keen to strengthen ties with Bollywood, I am assured by Andrew Craske and Hugo Heppell, spokesman and head of production respectively of Screen Yorkshire, who have been batting, Boycott like, in Cannes for their county.

Publicity: Producer Aanand Mahendroo

Tittle tattle

Producer Aanand Mahendroo had already committed himself to $6 million on funding Colours of Passion before Cannes, where he spent another half a million dollars on publicity, advertising and throwing a party on the beach.

But he has yet another trick to publicise his movie.

“It so happens I have an original painting by Raja Ravi Varma,” he disclosed.

And he is going to give it away. “We will have a nationwide competition in India. First prize is my painting by Raja Ravi Varma.”