After announcing their sponsorship of The American Pavilion, the center of business and hospitality for the American film community at this year’s 75^th Cannes Film Festival, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) launched its first panel on May 23^rd: “Cannes First Time: Conversation” with the new voices of Cannes.

Moderated by HFPA member and award-winning journalist KJ Matthews, the panel featured three new talents talking about their first time on the Croisette as filmmakers.

Lotfy Nathan came to Cannes to present his feature directorial debut with Harka, part of the selection “Un Certain Regard.” Harka is set in Tunisia, in North Africa, and follows Ali, a young man in his 20s who makes a precarious living selling contraband gas on the streets. “My plan was to make a film about Mohamed Bouazizi, who was the catalyst for what they call the Arab Spring in the west,” Lofty said. “In this small town in Tunisia, in the south, he self-immolated and became the symbol for the revolution. Although it could have happened anywhere in a lot of other countries.

“I thought that would never happen where I live, and I thought it was so remarkable that it was happening there. I thought there was this exciting generation that was actually getting into the street. And also, as I was thinking about what my first scripted film would be, I was really interested in the fact that there was an individual who was the symbol for it. So, with my documentary background, my first project was a documentary, I thought that I would go to the city where it happened and try to find out about his life and make this very intimate portrait of him. Then just from there, it evolved and the time that it took to make the film.

“This was in the aftermath of the revolution, so it didn’t make sense anymore to do a pre-revolution story. At the time, the revolution seemed very celebratory, but I think people were a bit fatigued by it once they saw what the actual aftermath was. But interestingly, while I was working on the film – I live in New York – there was a cab driver who killed himself outside City Hall downtown, basically after the taxi industry had been decimated by Uber and the rideshare companies. I think it is really a universal condition. So, things like that made me remember to try to keep this universal element in mind while I was making the story.”

Today, Nathan feels v honored to be in Cannes to present his movie and is not shy to admit that he did a fair amount of celebrating when he heard he would come to the Croisette. “I was so excited, I was drinking champagne for three days. I found out in the morning, and I had a drink at probably like 10:00 in the morning. I was celebrating for a while, but then obviously, it sinks in that there’s stuff to do and there’s a lot to prepare. You want to have all your ducks in a row before getting here because there are great opportunities to be had with it. But it’s just great.”

Lofty Nathan was joined by another new talent: film director from Ukraine Maksym Nakonechnyi, who makes his directorial debut with Butterfly Vision. Also part of “Un Certain Regard,” Butterfly Vision tells the compelling story of Lilia, who was held for months as a prisoner of war, and now struggles to resume her life in Ukraine as a soldier and wife. This is a situation made even more real since the country is at war. “Everyone is, I guess, happy that we are having this exposure and that we are bringing the fact to the spotlight that the war didn’t start on February 24th this year,” Maksym explained. “It has been building up for the last eight years, starting with the invasion and annexation of Crimea and the invasion of the Donbas. As the result of the propaganda and of the profound Russian influence and their forceful presence there, it was presented as a frozen conflict, but now we see that it has turned into a real war. So far, it’s all been good that we are just having this exposure and having this possibility to speak out on this platform, which gains a lot of attention. It is a matter of our survival also, because our very identity is under attack, and culture is the thing that initially forms identity. That’s why it’s essential to keep it sustainable enough because it’s not only our army that is the target. It’s also our identity as a sovereign state and our culture.”

Finally, the third new talent attending this panel was Soumitra Ranade, a filmmaker from India. Soumitra has been writing, directing, and producing a wide range of animation and live-action projects in feature films, TV series, documentaries, and short experimental genres. Founder-Chairman of Paperboat Design Studios, he is currently working on Kabuliwala, an animated adaptation of Rabindranath Tagore’s classic short story. “Kabuliwala translates as ‘a man from Kabul,’” Soumitra said. “The title itself, I think, is pretty self-explanatory in that sense, because this whole thing – the myth about a man in a turban and a beard being a man of war – it’s not at all true. I lived in Afghanistan as a teenager, so I’ve seen the country very closely. I think animation is reality with a twist. It is reality, but it’s got a twist to it, and that twist is exciting for me. (Tagore’s) Kabuliwala is a very grim story. And it can be a grim story, but if you do the same film in animation, it adds a level of abstraction to it. It adds a layer of a fable kind of a thing. So it takes it away from reality in spite of being rooted in reality.

“All the films that we have launched now recently are films I’ve been imagining for the last two, three years, at least. I also wrote the scripts. While you’re writing, you are creating images in your mind. Since I’m a painter also, it’s slightly easier for me to imagine things and actually draw them out also. It’s an interesting process. What is also interesting is that when I work with a team, I have to communicate this entire aesthetic to a large number of people. It is very exciting to be here in Cannes. It is wonderful to see how people are responding here. Cannes is a wonderful platform to present all our projects. It is really an honor to be part of this festival.”

Let’s hope their Cannes debut is just the start of a long and successful career for all three.