Ahmad Abbas
Early examples of Indian cinema's social realist movement include "Dharti Ke Lal" (1946), a film about the Bengal famine of 1943 directed and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas, and "Neecha Nagar" (1946), a film directed by Chetan Anand and written by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas that won the Grand Prize at the first Cannes Film Festival. Since then, Indian independent films were frequently in competition for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, with some of them winning major prizes at the festival.