Dr Rao (Girish Karnad) is a veterinary doctor, who comes to a village in Gujarat with the aim of starting a Milk Co-operative society for the welfare of the villagers. But the wealthy businessman Mishraji (Amrish Puri) and Sarpanch (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) are unhappy about this. However, Dr Rao succeeds in his mission to make the villagers self-reliant, with the help of Bindu (Smita Patil) and Bhola (Naseeruddin shah). This is the story of the 1976 classic, Manthan, directed by the legendary director, Shyam Benegal.
A restored version of “Manthan”, starring Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah and Girish Karnad, is set to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival’s Classics segment on May 17.
“They’ve done an excellent job. The quality of the print now is better than what the first print of the film was 45 years ago, when the film was made,” Benegal, 89, said, crediting Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), founded by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, for the film’s restoration. Manthan”, a fictionalized version of the beginnings of the remarkable dairy cooperative movement that transformed India from a milk-deficient nation to the world’s largest milk producer inspired by Verghese Kurien, the Father of the White Revolution, is also India’s first crowdfunded film produced by 500,000 dairy farmers who contributed Rs. 2 each towards the production of the film.
The movie was restored by Film Heritage Foundation at Prasad Corporation, Chennai and L’Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory, in association with Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., the cinematographer Govind Nihalani and the director Shyam Benegal. The movie was restored using the best surviving elements: the 35 mm original camera negative preserved at the NFDC-National Film Archive of India and the sound was digitised from the 35 mm release print preserved at Film Heritage Foundation.
The 77th annual Cannes Film Festival is taking place from 14 to 25 May 2024. American filmmaker and actress Greta Gerwig will serve as jury president for the main competition. French actress Camille Cottin will host the opening and closing ceremonies.
