05/02/2024
Film Heritage Foundation’s hat trick at the Festival de Cannes!!
Film Heritage Foundation returns to the Cannes Film Festival for a third year in a row for the red-carpet world premiere of the 4K restoration of Shyam Benegal’s milestone film “Manthan” (1976) - India’s first crowd funded film produced by 500,000 farmers.
“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.
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.
Manthan 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.
Funding supported by Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.
Special thanks to Prashant Kanyalkar for the poster design.