Indian filmmaker Chaitanya Tamhane has been chosen as one of the protégés for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative for 2016-17. The 29-year-old filmmaker, who directed the critically-acclaimed Marathi film Court in 2014, will be mentored by Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón. Cuarón is best known for directing the dramas A Little Princess (1995) and Y Tu Mamá También (2001), the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), and science fiction thrillers Children of Men (2006) and Gravity (2013).
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Founded in 2002, this program gives emerging professional talents from seven disciplines a chance to be mentored by prominent figures from their field. Each protégé receives a stipend of 25,000 Swiss francs (about $26,000) and is eligible for an equivalent amount at the end of the year, to support the creation of a new work.
Court, which took on India’s obsolete and problematic judicial system, won the national award for the best film at the 62nd National Film Awards. It was also India’s submission to the Oscars for the Best Foreign-Language Film that year.
Cuarón is the first Latin American director to win the Best Director at the Academy Awards. He received the Oscar in 2014 for Gravity.
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