CANNES: The CII India party at the Majestic Beach turned out to be an interesting affair. With about 500 people attending (of which about 80-90 were journalists), the get-together went on till the early hours of the morning. In attendance were a phalanx of representatives from the Indian and interested-in-India film industry.

The hosts: the government of India, the CII were in full attendance: newly inducted information & broadcasting ministry secretary Asha Swarup, jt secretary Pyarelal, Indian ambassador to France Ranjan Mathai, director festivals Sangeeta Singh, Suneet Tandon, NFDC CEO Nina lath Gupta, and CII entertainment boss Bobby Bedi and Ajay Khanna. They greeted almost every important guest who walked in.

Glamour too was represented at the party in the form of Preity Zinta who was heard laughing loudly - in her trademark self - with Hyde Park Entertainment's Ashok Amritaj and Eros Entertainment boss Kishore Lulla, Manisha Koirala (looking better than ever having shed weight, colouring her hair blondish and getting some pink in her cheeks), and of course actress Masoomi. Industry bigwigs who made it included: Reliance Infocom's Amit Khanna, Parminder Vir OBE, Idreams Ashish Bhatnagar, Adlabs Sunir Khetrapal, the Hinduja family fame Prakash Hinduja, the Jumani cousins, Krishna Shah, India Independent Film maker Ketan Mehta, Shemaroo's Kalapi, Hiren Gada, Smita Maroo, IIFW patron the CESC's Surina Narula, Sa re gama's BR Sharan, Gazala Akbar (MJ Akbr's sister), Ronnie Screwvala, Sunita Gowariker, among many others.A slate of distributors from all over the world were also present.

The food was very Indian consisting of chicken rice, chicken masala, fried fish balls, lamb curry, and fish. The sad part is it ran out. The guests washed it down with lots of liquor and wine, and followed it up with desserts.

While, the party effort was surely a good one, a lot more needs to be done to get the party to become a happening and useful one. For starters, get the right guests to attend it (distributors, potential coproducers, financers). Second, theme it up a lot more, giving it the right India identity; make it different. Use the party to propogate a message about Indian cinema. Thirdly, make the right kind of noise about it; let word of mouth prevail, let it become the place to be. Fourthly, create opportunities for networking at, and following the party. Get the business going for film makers who want to make a different kind of cinema.