The short film, Sunflowers Were The First Ones To Know won the La Cinef Award at the Cannes Film Festival 2024 on Thursday. The film is directed by Chidananda S Naik who is a student at The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). It is inspired from a Kannada folk tale about an old woman who happens to steal a rooster.

The institute took to X to congratulate Chidananda on the win and said, “‘FTII brings big honour to India’. Our Student film "Sunflowers were the first ones to know" is the winner of La Cinef Award at 77th Cannes Film Festival. Student director Shri Chidananda S Naik received this prestigious award at Cannes on 23rd May 2024.”

The third prize in the competition went to Mansi Maheshwari for her animated film, Bunnyhood. She is an ex-student of NIFT, Delhi and made the film as a student at National Film and Television School in UK. The second prize was shared between Columbia University's Asya Segalovich for the film Widow Through the Wall and Nikos Kolioukos’ The Chaos She Left Behind.

The awarded films will be screened at the Cinema du Pantheon on June 3 and at the MK2 Quai de Seine on June 4.