Some time ago a director was trying to shoot a documentary behind the making of a cheap sex-horror film called Maut ka Chehra. That documentary never got made, but the stories the director heard from ex-convicts, pimps, underworld dons, and prostitutes all tied up in the C grade industry has now turned into a fascinating movie that has caught the attention of the Cannes film festival.

'Miss Lovely' is to be screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival, an official section that gives pride of place to movies that have (in the words of the Festival organizers) "an original aim and aesthetic". When you watch 'Miss Lovely', there is no doubt that it has both of these in spades, as you might expect from the director of the pathbreaking film John and Jane. That film, with its mix of documentary and non-documentary techniques, garnered its director Ashim Ahluwalia a National Award for best documentary as well as a number of International film awards. It was also partially responsible for Phaidon Press marking Ahluwalia as "one of ten the best emerging film directors working today" in 2010. With 'Miss Lovely', Ahluwalia  has crafted a movie of singular vision about two brothers, Sonu & Vicky Duggal, (Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Anil George) who make sex and horror movies that might be considered to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. But 'Miss Lovely' is not a movie that is interested in making fun of these movie makers. As Ahluwalia says, "I don't laugh at these films at all but marvel at how they were made so cheaply, with so few resources. In that sense, they were the original independent films of their time".

'Miss Lovely' is a departure from the conventions of contemporary Hindi film. But  it is a film that, as Ahluwalia says, "is very confident of it's Indian-ness" and which "shows that we have a more diverse cinematic vocabulary in this country". Of late, the Cannes festival has attracted more attention in India for its business aspects, whether it be stars parading down the red carpet for corporate sponsors, or for the film distribution market that occurs in parallel to the festival. This year 'Miss Lovely' will ensure that it is actually Indian filmmaking that is making the news.