Jayen Mehta speaks after the screening of ‘Manthan’ at the 77th Cannes Film Festival | Photo credit: ARSI SEBASTIEN PHOTOGRAPHE
On May 17, something extraordinary happened at the Cannes Film Festival. A 4K reconstruction of Shyam Benegal’s parallel cinema classic Whipping was shown at the Salle Buñuel theater in the Cannes Classics sidebar. The film, which was released 48 years ago, was India’s first crowd-funded film: 5,00,000 farmers donated £2 each to the project. His extraordinary patronage was in keeping with the grassroots movement he praised: Varghese Kurien’s efforts to run a dairy cooperative in Anand, Gujarat.
Kurien, commonly known as the Milkman of India, was the architect of the nation’s dairy revolution. His modernization efforts liberated milk producers from the clutches of monopolists, made India the world’s leading milk producer and transformed Anand Milk Union Circumscribed (AMUL) into a global brand. Today, AMUL is the largest cooperative dairy brand in Asia.
Jayen Mehta, Naseeruddin Shah, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Prateik Babbar and more on the red carpet in Cannes, France, on May 17
Bow. Jayen Mehta of Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF), branded AMUL, walked the red carpet with Naseeruddin Shah, Ratna Pathak Shah and tardy actor Smita Patil’s son Prateik Babbar. Also present were Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, founder and director of the Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), which undertook the restoration, and Nirmala Kurien, daughter of the tardy Kurien. Shyam Benegal (89) was unable to attend the festival due to his frail health condition.
The Whipping The contingent had a packed agenda: a media briefing at the Bharat Pavilion in Cannes, followed by a red carpet and screening. The film received a five-minute standing ovation from a packed house, says Mehta, who joined Shah, Babbar and Dungarpur for a question-and-answer session on stage. “I was talking about the newfangled meaning of the word Whipping and shared some statistics with the audience,” says Mehta. “AMUL’s turnover 50 years ago was a meager ₹20 crore. Today our revenue target is . 80,000 crores. Milk is the largest agricultural crop and we have 2 million dairy cooperatives in the country.
Standing applause for “Manthan” in Cannes
“When people measure a film’s success, they look at box office numbers,” he adds. “But WhippingSuccess in this featherlight is incalculable.”
Benegal’s film, which won the National Award for Best Hindi Film, was India’s entry for the 1976 Academy Awards and had a lasting impact by highlighting the plight of dairy farmers in newly independent India and the barriers of caste and gender oppression they faced.
“It touched upon significant issues such as women’s empowerment, which continue to be of great interest,” says Mehta. The film is an integral part of AMUL’s cultural heritage. “Everyone who joins the cooperative, the first film we show them is the so-called Whipping“
Smita Patil and Girish Karnad in Whipping
Mehta is effusive in his praise for the return of ultra-high resolution Whipping. The film was restored and digitized from the original camera negative over the course of 17 months. The project was funded by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation.
“The work done by the Film Heritage Foundation Whipping it’s inspiring,” says Mehta. “The sound, the colors, the textures, the grain… everything turned out wonderful. In fact, when Benegal saw it, he said it looked better than the original. Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, who attended the conference Whipping briefing, reaffirmed the government’s intention to restore 4,000 films in our national archives, Mehta adds.
After being accepted in Cannes, a restored version Whipping will release in select theaters across India on June 1 and 2. A premiere show is also planned in Mumbai with the participation of Benegal and other surviving cast and crew members. “The film will be released in at least 30 cities in leading multiplexes,” says Mehta.
