‘Manthan’: Restored version of Shyam Benegal's film to premiere at Cannes

The restored version of Shyam Benegal's acclaimed 1976 film, "Manthan", will be featured at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May. The film, which has been recently restored by the Film Heritage Foundation, will be showcased at Cannes (May 14-25) as part of its Classics section.

"Manthan", centered on the groundbreaking milk cooperative movement led by Dr Verghese Kurien—the architect of India's White Revolution—was produced by five lakh dairy farmers of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which also markets the film.

The film featuring Naseeruddin Shah and the late actress Smita Patil is the sole Indian film selected for the Cannes Classic section at this year's festival. 

"Manthan" is part of the Cannes lineup with Payal Kapadia's "All We Imagine As Light" (selected for the Competition section), Maisam Ali's "In Retreat" (showing in the sidebar ACID Cannes programme), and Chidanand S Naik's "Sunflowers Were The First Ones To Know" (chosen for the competitive La Cinef category). Additionally, British filmmaker Sandhya Suri's "Santosh", starring Indian actor Shahana Goswami, will also be showcased at Cannes.

The Cannes film premiere will be attended by Naseeruddin Shah, the family of the late Smita Patil, the film's producers, and Shivendra Singh Dungarpur from the Film Heritage Foundation.

Co-written by Benegal and renowned playwright Vijay Tendulkar, "Manthan" is set in Gujarat and is believed to be India's first crowdfunded film. The movie was entirely financed by 500,000 farmers who each donated Rs 2.

In 1977, "Manthan" received two National Film Awards: Best Feature Film in Hindi and Best Screenplay for Tendulkar. It was also India's official submission to the 1976 Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to commence on May 14 and conclude on May 25.