Director Anurag Kashyap’s Kennedy premiered at the 76th Cannes Film Festival, where it received a seven-minute standing ovation from the audience at the Grand Lumiere Theatre. A video from the venue was shared by the YouTube channel of the festival. As the audience broke into an applause, the film’s stars, Rahul Bhat and Sunny Leone, got emotional, and Anurag had the biggest smile on his face. The team thanked everyone who was present. Sunny told Anurag, “You did it,” and said, “Yeah I’m not crying.”
Watch the Kennedy standing ovation video here:
The team hugged and congratulated each other. Filmmaker Sudhir Mishra was also present in the auditorium, and Anurag walked up to him and touched his feet. The two then shared a hug. Kennedy was inspired by a story that Sudhir had told Anurag many years ago.
Many photos and videos from the premiere were shared by attendees on social media.
Kennedy has Rahul playing the titular role of a murderous ex-cop, which Anurag had initially written for Chiyaan Vikram. The director told Film Companion that the film is called Kennedy because that’s Vikram’s name, but since he couldn’t get in touch with the actor, he cast Rahul in the role. Although, Vikram later tweeted that he did get in touch with the director later, but by that time, the film was only a month away from shooting and everything was locked. Rahul later told the publication that if he ever meets Vikram, he will thank the star for not being able to respond to Anurag in time.
