#IndiaAtCannes | Nawazuddin Siddiqui: Only good cinema talked about here, not box office collections

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui says our country doesn’t value talent even after international validation, and how his upcoming film has no buyers on OTT as well.

Ninth time’s the charm for Nawazuddin Siddiqui, it seems. After making eight trips to the prestigious Cannes film festival the previous years, this year for the first time he was invited by the Government of India to represent the country. He walked the red carpet on May 17. What also makes it more special for him is that he will ring in his birthday there on May 19.

Actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui is in Cannes currently.

“Representing India is always special. Be it on my birthday or any other day. I have spent five-six of my birthdays at Cannes as it’s been held around the same time every year. I am not a person who celebrates birthdays as such. It’s just like a normal day,” says the 47-year-old.

His earliest memory of the festival is when two of his films- Gangs of Wasseypur and Miss Lovely had made the rounds there (both 2012). “I had never thought this much before that I will go to Cannes one day when I had started off. It’s the mecca of cinema, vahana chaaron taraf ache cinema ki baat hoti hai, box office collection ki baat nahi hoti. Hum jo collection ki baatein kar kar ke cinema dekh rahe hain na aaj kal? Vahaan uski baat nahi hoti,” shares the actor.

Siddiqui says it doesn’t happen even then, “Hamare yahaan tab bhi notice nahi karte, even after the films get recognition outside. Uske baad bhi hamare yahaan uss tarah ki films ko screening nahi milti. I have a film No Land’s Man. It’s going to the Sydney Film Festival. Can you believe that no OTT platform is ready to take that film? It’s such a fast, beautiful film. Cinema mein release karna toh door ki baat hai. I feel so disheartened.”