Veteran actors Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Prateik Babbar, Dr. Verghese Kurien’s daughter Nirmala Kurien, and Amul MD Jayen Mehta graced the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival 2024 during the screening of ‘Manthan’. Amul India shared glimpses of the event on Instagram, captioning the post, “‘Manthan’ team of Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah, Prateik Babbar, Ms. Nirmala Kurien, @filmheritagefoundation team, & Shri Jayen_Mehta, MD, Amul, representing 3.6 million farmer producers of the film at @festivaldecannes #ManthanAtCannes.”
The classic film ‘Manthan’, directed by Shyam Benegal, was showcased during a prestigious gala on Friday at Salle Bunuel. The film, starring the late Smita Patil along with Naseeruddin Shah, Girish Karnad, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Mohan Agashe, Anant Nag, and Amrish Puri, is the only Indian film selected under the Cannes Classics section this year. Based on the pioneering milk cooperative movement led by Dr. Verghese Kurien, the film was produced by the contributions of 500,000 dairy farmers of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), marketed under the Amul brand.
‘Manthan’ is notable for being the first crowd-funded Indian film, with each of the 500,000 farmers donating Rs. 2. Kurien, along with Vijay Tendulkar, wrote the script for the movie. The film won two National Film Awards in 1977 for Best Feature Film in Hindi and 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 ‘Manthan’ at Cannes was attended by Naseeruddin Shah, the family of the late Smita Patil, the film’s producers, and Film Heritage Foundation’s Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. Shyam Benegal expressed his delight over the restoration, emphasizing the film’s significance in promoting economic equality and empowering farmers through an extraordinary cooperative movement.
The Cannes Film Festival 2024 began on May 14 and will continue until May 25. (ANI)
