Friday evening saw a French theatre in Cannes reverberating with the magic of Indian storytelling - courtesy of Shyam Benegal's classic Manthan.
Starring the late Smita Patil and actor Naseeruddin Shah, Manthan, which 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 for creating the billion-dollar brand 'Amul', created waves at the ongoing 77th edition of Cannes Film Festival with its premiere.
The screening of Manthan was attended by Naseeruddin Shah, his wife Ratna Pathak Shah, Prateik Babbar, actor and son of Smita Patil, Nirmala Kurien, daughter of the legendary Dr Verghese Kurien, Father of the White Revolution, Anita Patil Deshmukh and Manya Patil Seth, sisters of Smita Patil, and Dr Jayen Mehta, Managing Director, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd., the producers of the film.
One of the viral videos from the screening showed the moment the film came to an end, the crowd present in the theatre erupted into big applause and gave a standing ovation to the film and actor Naseeruddin Shah.
Manthan was restored by Film Heritage Foundation at Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd.'s Post - Studios, Chennai and L'Immagine Ritrovata Laboratory, in association with Gujarat Co-Operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. (Amul), the cinematographer Govind Nihalani and the director Shyam Benegal.
Speaking about the Cannes premiere of Manthan, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Director, Film Heritage Foundation stated, "It was amazing walking the red carpet third time in a row and presenting another restored classic here in Cannes the head of Cannes Classic kept talking about the level of restoration various people came to me to talk about the restoration and said they cannot believe the level of restoration we missed Shyam Benegal as there was standing ovation which lasted for almost 5minutes after the film."
Noteworthily, Manthan is also India's first crowdfunded film produced by 500,000 dairy farmers who contributed Rs. 2/- each towards the production of the film. Also, Indian audiences can catch the premiere of the restored film in theatres nationwide on World Milk Day falling on June 1st, 2024.
Earlier on Saturday, Amul India created a special doodle to celebrate the Cannes premiere of Manthan.
Manthan also starred Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Girish Karnad, and Mohan Agashe.
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