Restored version of ‘Manthan’ to premiere at Cannes Film Festival

NEW DELHI: The restored version of veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal’s 1976 film ‘Manthan’ will be screened at the upcoming edition of the Cannes Film Festival, said Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, founder of Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) on Thursday.

Fronted by Smita Patil, the film was inspired by the pioneering milk cooperative movement of Verghese Kurien, who led ‘Operation Flood’ to transform India from a milk-deficient country to the world’s biggest milk producer and is credited with creating the billion-dollar brand ‘Amul’.

According to the Cannes Film Festival website, ‘Manthan’ will be screened under ‘Cannes Classics’, a section created 20 years ago which features celebrations, restored prints and documentaries.

‘Manthan’ is the third consecutive movie restored by the foundation to head to Cannes, one of the most prestigious film galas around the world. FHF brought a restoration of G Aravindan’s Malayalam movie ‘Thampu’ (1978) to

Cannes Classics in 2022, followed by the restored ‘Ishanou’ - directed by Manipuri auteur Aribam Syam Sharma - under the same segment last year. Dungarpur shared the update on his ‘X’ page.

“Unbelievable third year in a row at the Cannes Film Festival. Film Heritage Foundation is proud to bring the Restoration of Shyam Benegal’s

milestone film ‘Manthan’ produced by 500,000 farmers who gave rupees two to produce this film. I wish Smita Patil was here to see this,” the filmmaker and film archivist wrote in his post.

Co-written by Benegal and Vijay Tendulkar, Gujarat-set ‘Manthan’ is believed to be the first crowd-funded Indian film.