Exclusive! Shivendra Singh Dungarpur on Cannes screening of Manthan: The film is reborn

After its outing at the Cannes Film Festival, restored Manthan to be released in India multiplexes

Naseeruddin Shah, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur and Prateik Babbar at Cannes

The 77th Cannes Film Festival has been a particularly glorious cinema event for India. Payal Kapadia bagged the Grand Prix for her debut feature All We Imagine Is Light. Anasuya Sengupta won the Best Actress Award in the Un Certain Regard category for Bulgarian director Konstantin Bojanov’s The Shameless. Both Payal and Anasuya are the first Indians to receive the respective awards.

Also read: Payal Kapadia receives Grand Prix for All We Imagine As Light at Cannes Film Festival

Meanwhile, this was the first Cannes outing for veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah. He was there as the restored print of Shyam Benegal’s Manthan was screened at the festival. Naseeruddin received a five-minute standing ovation after the screening. Now, the restored version of Manthan will be screened at the selected auditorium of Inox-PVR on June 1 and 2.

The man behind the restoration, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur is evidently elated. He said that the Film Heritage Foundation has resurrected Manthan. While talking to OTTplay, the producer, director, and restorer said, “Cannes Film Festival is extraordinary. The very fact that the kind of films selected here speaks volumes of the festival. It combines fame and glamour seamlessly. It put the films on a pedestal. The audience is international and the projection is extraordinary. Naseeruddin Shah received a standing ovation for five minutes. After 48 years, Manthan is reborn. People are once again talking about it.”

Also read: Exclusive! Anasuya Sengupta after winning the Best Actress at Cannes: It has been wild

This is Shivendra’s third Cannes outing. “After Govindan Aravindan Thampu and Aribam Syam Sharma's Ishanou, it is the third year in a row to resurrect Indian cinema through restoration for the Indian audience. Our focus is regional cinema. We are working on Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s Uttara and Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri,” he said.

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