Manthan: What the first Indian crowdfunded movie being screened at the Cannes Film Festival stands for
For the longest time in my life, I thought the Cannes Film Festival was only about celebrities wearing designer clothes and walking red carpets, about fashion faux-pas, hits and misses, and who wore what and when. Only in the past few years have I come to realize its true essence.
In the mid-1970s, half a million dairy farmers from Gujarat contributed two rupees each to make a pathbreaking film, Manthan, starring Girish Karnad, Smita Patil, and Naseeruddin Shah. Directed by Shyam Benegal and jointly written by him and Vijay Tendulkar, Manthan is a fictionalized version of the genesis of the dairy cooperative movement that transformed India from a milk-deficient nation to the world’s largest milk producer, inspired by Dr. Verghese Kurien.
Restored by the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), Manthan has been chosen to be screened at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival’s ‘Cannes Classics strand. However, restoring the classic wasn’t easy, says Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, archivist and founder of the Film Heritage Foundation. The original camera negative was in poor condition and with scratches, green lines, faded color, and flicker problems. The sound negative was also not available. It took the Film Heritage Foundation 17 months to restore the movie as per the vision of Shyam Benegal and ace cinematographer Govind Nihalani. Manthan was restored using the best surviving elements: the 35 mm original camera negative preserved at the NFDC-National Film Archive of India and the 35 mm release print preserved at the Film Heritage Foundation.
Today, the movie not only stands for bringing a grounded version of how the White Revolution began in a small village in rural Gujarat but also for showcasing the collective power of the farmers. The movie called out caste discrimination, animal abuse, patriarchy, and socio-economic inequality long before these terms were in trend. An exemplary example of the same is when, early on in the movie, Dr. Rao (played by Girish Karnad), a young veterinary doctor, arrives in the Kheda village of Gujarat with his team and is asked to hop onto a bullock cart pulled by a horse, to which he replies, “I’ll prefer to walk instead.”
When asked whether the caste system still prevails in the country, actor Naseeruddin Shah said in one of the recent interviews by Brut at Cannes, " The curse of the caste system is unfortunately still around and affects millions of lesser-privileged citizens of our country. Manthan makes a statement regarding the unity of those who are oppressed. A single person cannot change the system but can definitely inspire a hundred others.”
The restored version of Manthan will be released on June 1st and 2nd in 50 cities and 100 cinemas all over India. The older version of the movie can also be found on Zee5 and, of course, on YouTube.
