Nandita Das's Manto to premiere at Cannes 2018 in Un Certain Regard section

Nandita Das's biopic on Saadat Hasan Manto, titled Manto, has been shortlisted to feature in the Un Certain Regard competition section of the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.

The Un Certain Regard category of the festival hosts films that seek to tell stories in non-traditional ways.

The director, Das, needless to say, is thrilled at the announcement. 

Incidentally, the first poster of the film was unveiled at Cannes in 2017.

Manto is not the first film to be screened at the festival. Vikramaditya Motwane's Udaan (2010), Ashim Ahluwalia's Miss Lovely (2012), Anurag Kashyap's Gangs of Wasseypur (2012), Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox (2013) and Kanu Behl's Titli (2014) were also showcased in the same category. 

Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan (2015) was the last film to win big at the festival. It bagged the Prix de l'Avenir (a special jury prize for promising debut films). 

Manto is based on the life of the iconic Urdu writer Saadat Hassan Manto. The film features Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rasika Duggal, Tahir Raj Bhasin, Paresh Rawal, among others. The India release date of the film is yet to be decided. 

The Cannes Film Festival 2018 will begin on 8 May and conclude on 19 May in the city of Cannes, on the French Riviera.  Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi's Todos La Saben (Everybody Knows) has been selected as the opening film of the festival.