Naseeruddin Shah, Prateik Babbar, Amul MD Jayen Mehta walk Cannes red carpet for Manthan screening. See pics

Manthan, which starred late actor Smita Patil, is the only Indian film to be selected under the Cannes Classic section of the festival this year. The film also featured Girish Karnad, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Mohan Agashe, Anant Nag, and Amrish Puri among others.

The film, based on the pioneering milk cooperative movement of Dr Verghese Kurien — the father of the White Revolution in India, was produced by five lakh dairy farmers of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), which markets its products under the Amul brand.

The Gujarat-set movie was entirely crowdfunded by 500,000 farmers who donated Rs 2 each. Kurien, along with Vijay Tendulkar, had penned the script for the movie.

Manthan won two National Film Awards in 1977: for Best Feature Film in Hindi and for Best Screenplay for Tendulkar. It was also India’s official entry to the 1976 Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category.

The premiere of the restored version of the film at Cannes was attended by Naseeruddin Shah, the family of the late Smita Patil, the producers of the film, and Film Heritage Foundation’s Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.

About the film’s screening at the Cannes, Shyam Benegal earlier said, “I was absolutely delighted when Shivendra told me that Film Heritage Foundation was going to restore Manthan in collaboration with the Gujarat Milk Marketing Federation Ltd. Manthan is a film that is very close to my heart as it was funded by 500,000 farmers and was instrumental in the growth of an extraordinary cooperative movement that was aimed at breaking the shackles of economic inequality and caste discrimination whilst empowering the farmers.”

Cannes Film Festival 2024 opened on May 14 and will go on till May 25.

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