Preity Zinta returns to Cannes Film Festival after 17 years in a shimmery white gown. Watch

Preity Zinta is at the Cannes Film Festival to present the Pierre Angenieux ExcelLens in Cinematography honour to longtime collaborator Santosh Sivan.

Preity Zinta is among the Indian contingent who will appear at the Cannes Film Festival this year. The actor, who left for the French Riviera on Wednesday, made her first appearance at the event, though she's yet to walk the red carpet. (Also Read – Preity Zinta on why she didn't do films for 6 years: ‘Nature isn’t fair to women, we have a biological clock’)

Preity Zinta at Cannes Film Festival

Preity's first appearance

A video of Preity gearing up to walk the red carpet surfaced on social media on Friday. In the video, Preity posed for a boomerang, wearing a shimmery pearl white gown. She complemented the look with pearl earrings and hair tied behind her back. She looked elegant as she struck a pose on the riverside.

What's Preity doing at Cannes?

The actor is at the Cannes Film Festival to present the Pierre Angenieux ExcelLens in Cinematography honour to longtime collaborator Santosh Sivan. She did her first film, Mani Ratnam's romantic drama Dil Se (1998), with Santosh as the cinematographer. She's now reunited with him for her first film in seven years, Rajkumar Santoshi's upcoming period drama Lahore 1947.

In an interview with DD India from the Cannes Film Festival, Preity recalled how it was Santosh's genius that made her look good in Dil Se despite Mani Ratnam asking her to sport a no-makeup look. She also recalled how he pampered her during the shoot of the song Jiya Jale. “While we were shooting in Kerala, the song had a little light rain. You don't really see the rain, but it was there. So in the four days there, my bones were hurting in the rain, I had fever, I wasn't feeling well. Santosh came and got me rasam and all the food, and said, ‘Why don’t you eat this? It's hot.' He was really sweet and took care of me,” said Preity.

Preity made her Cannes debut in 2006. She attended the premiers of The Wind That Shakes The Barley and Paris, Je T'aime. She returned to the festival in 2013 as the brand ambassador of the luxury watch brand, Chopard. She'll be next seen in Lahore 1947.