Cannes 2024: After 48 years, Shyam Benegal’s ‘Manthan’ premiers

A restored 4K version of ‘Manthan (The Churning)’, Shyam Benegal’s 1976 film about the creation of India’s first dairy cooperative in a Gujarat village, lit up the screen at Salle Bunuel.

Cannes: A significant slice of New Indian Cinema history was under the spotlight at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on Friday night.

A restored 4K version of ‘Manthan (The Churning)’, Shyam Benegal’s 1976 film about the creation of India’s first dairy cooperative in a Gujarat village, lit up the screen at Salle Bunuel.

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Naseeruddin Shah, a key member of the film’s cast, spoke ahead of the screening: “This show of Manthan is dedicated to Dr Verghese Kurien. It is also an occasion to recall Smita Patil, Girish Karnad, Amrish Puri and music composer Vanraj Bhatia.”

“It was my second film as a screen actor. I was extremely nervous about how it would do at the box office. Nobody gave the film a ghost of chance but it turned out to be a sleeper hit that generated more work for all of us,” he added.

The actor said at a time when Hindi filmmakers would make only what they felt that the audience wanted to see, Benegal “found ways to speak about the truth of the times.”

‘Manthan’, funded with a contribution of Rs 2 each from half a million milk farmers, was a follow-up to Benegal’s first two films — Ankur (1974) and Nishant (1976), which was in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It completed a timely and powerful trilogy on rural distress.

Manthan was restored using a 35-mm camera negative preserved at the National Film Archive of India. The sound was digitised from the 35-mm release print in the possession of the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), which undertook the restoration project a year-and-a-half ago. It was funded by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. The film was restored under the aegis of the FHF at Prasad Corporation’s post-studios and the Bologna-based L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in association with Benegal and cinematographer Govind Nihalani.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, speaking after Cannes Classics in-charge Gerald Duchaussoy introduced ‘Manthan’, said: “It is an extraordinary feeling to be here for the third year in a row.”

Dungarpur said the restored ‘Manthan’ will release in 70 cities on June 1. “If you restore a film, you have also got to distribute it,” he added. Smita Patil’s son Prateik Babbar was on the stage to share his emotions, while the late actor’s sisters, Anita Patil Deshmukh and Manya Patil Seth, were in the audience. Also present at the screening of Manthan was Dr Kurien’s daughter Nirmala Kurien.