The year was 1946—a historic year for cinema, both at home and beyond. While the Cannes film festival, which would come to witness numerous historic moments of global filmmaking, came into being in France, a film that would be equally defining in terms of its craft was made in India. Neecha Nagar went on to win the Grand Prix (now called Palme d’Or) at the first ever Cannes and is the only film to have won this highest honour till date. It was director Chetan Anand’s first film. Neecha Nagar shared the Grand Prix with ten films from other countries, including The Lost Weekend, by Billy Wilder, Leopold Lindtberg’s The Last Chance and Rome, Open City, Rossellini’s powerful anti-Fascist masterpiece.