Early examples of Indian cinema 's social realist movement include '' Dharti Ke Lal '' ( 1946 ) , a film about the Bengal famine of 1943 directed and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas , and '' Neecha Nagar '' ( 1946 ) , a film directed by Chetan Anand and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas that won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival . Since then , Indian independent films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival throughout the 1950s and early 1960s , with some of them winning major prizes at the festival
first Cannes Film Festival
1946 Cannes Film Festival
Parallel cinema