The most difficult part about attempting the impossible is that often you are not ready for it to become a reality! I was half awake this morning when I decided to randomly call on the office landline of Mr. Shyam Benegal to put a request for an interview. Not only did a restored version of his 1976 movie Manthan, which was also India’s first crowdfunded film, have a world premiere at the recently concluded 77th Cannes Film Festival, he has had a long association with FTII, the institute currently in news for its alumni’s Cannes glory. It is indeed a good time to talk to the 18 National Film Awards winning filmmaker. The phone rings, and I am greeted by a familiar, sombre voice: “Yes…”. I nearly jumped out of my skin. It was Shyam Benegal himself. I was suddenly wide awake and blank! I somehow explained the reason of my call and put forward my request.

“I am in my office, come over.”   

“Today?”  

“By noon. I will leave by 1pm. Don’t be late.”  

I got out of the bed, got ready, and dashed to his office. I have met him multiple times and he has always been warm, but entering his cabin still feels like going inside the principal’s office. And today, I was extra nervous because I had not done my homework. I intended to at least watch the movie again before landing up in front of one of the greatest Indian filmmakers of all time… but there we were. As usual, he was poring over a book, and this time it was Gabriel García Márquez's posthumous novel Until August. As he looked up, it suddenly dawned on me the rigor and discipline this man, who turns 90 this year, has. He is in his office every single day, unless there are health issues, even now, reading, meeting people, and working. “If I am living, I must also feel that I am alive. My mind and imagination should be working. Otherwise, what's the point,” he quips as he promptly gets into his very familiar interview mode by turning his chair to face me and crossing his arm across his chest. Excerpts: 

Man's World: Manthan, a movie you had made almost 50 years back, was screened at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Why did you give Cannes a miss? One expected you to be taking your movie there and be part of the premiere…  

Shyam Benegal: What was the point of it? I was not willing to pay from my pocket and go all the way! There was a group of people who were going anyway, and some of them were part of the film. Naseer, for instance, was one of the main actors in the film and he was there to represent the film. And that was more important than my being there. 

MW: What is your take on the restored version?  

SB: It is beautiful; it is brilliantly restored. In fact, I was absolutely amazed to see the quality of the restoration. I had never watched such a high-quality version of the film, although I made the film! This is far better than the original print we had. This is also because when we made Manthan, it was the mid-’70s, and there was a Forex crunch in India at that time. We were scrounging around for raw film stock; we were constantly improvising to shoot the film. So, the film quality wasn’t always what we would have liked.   

A few of my other films, like Ankur and Nishant were also restored, but now the process of restoration has become easier, and it is not that expensive. Technology has advanced so much.   

MW: The movie got a standing ovation upon its screening at Cannes, proving its timelessness. What can you tell us about the starting point of this movie? It is also India’s first crowd-funded movie…  

SB: Calling it crowdsourcing is a bit of a misnomer, because Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Limited held many milk unions in Gujarat. Dr. Verghese Kurien is the architect who made it possible for all these farmers who owned cattle and sold milk to get organised and become part of milk producers’ co-operatives; these co-operatives together became a union--Anand Milk Union Limited or AMUL. Later this template was replicated in other parts of India. India was number 2 in cattle count, yet it was a milk-deficient nation for many many years. We were not producing the amount of milk we could have; but now we do…now we rank first on the list of Top Largest Producers of Milk in The World. And this is because of this milk revolution. Dr. Kurien felt it was important for us to tell people how Gujarat’s individual farmers came together to create a milk cooperative and soon became a formidable force. Eventually the infrastructure, the processing plants, the supply chain, the industry as a whole developed. It was one of the greatest success stories India saw post-Independence.   

I had already worked on multiple Amul projects as an ad film maker and even made multiple documentaries for them before getting into the movies, so Manthan was kind of an organic progression. But I didn’t have the money to make the film, and the money came from the farmers. That is why it says…Manthan: A Film Made by Half a Million Indian Farmers. They all contributed towards telling their story. But it wasn’t actually a case of the farmers donating money, it was a certain amount from their daily wage that they would get deducted, they will not take home that portion of their salary and contribute the amount towards financing this movie. It was no skin off someone’s nose and we ended up making a film! Not only did we make a film but it also did extremely well commercially! And the farmers from across India formed a major chunk of the audience. They thronged the theatres to watch their own story. 

MW: In fact, it is interesting to note that the movie was a success at the box office…  

SB: It didn’t lose money; it made money. It couldn’t have possibly failed simply because the people who had financed the film actually then bought tickets to watch it (laughs). It was a readymade formula for success!

MW: And what’s your reaction to Indian filmmakers winning multiple awards at Cannes this year, including the Grand Prix?

SB: It is quite something. Winning at Cannes is a huge deal; it’s no ordinary feat. You have all eyes from across the world on your film. But this is not the first time that Indian films are having a moment at the film festival. Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar had won the Palme d'Or in 1946.

MW: Since you mention Neecha Nagar, after that win at the very first edition of Cannes film festival, we hardly had Indian films winning in the main competition sections. And it is not that India was not making good movies. Satyajit Ray had got multiple nominations at Cannes but never won; even his Oscar was an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar, none of his movie ever won an Oscar. Why do you think Indian cinema is suddenly under the spotlight? We are winning Oscars; we are winning at Cannes… but why a Shyam Benegal or a Mrinal Sen or a MS Sathyu or a Satyajit Ray never did?  

SB: It also depends on which way the wind is blowing. You might have made a great film, but the time might not be right. There are so many brilliant films that have happened, but they didn’t get the recognition; they didn’t get the international buzz because there was no one promoting those movies. Even when Satyajit Ray was making films, who was promoting those internationally? In the case of Ray, he had one or two British writers who kept writing about his movies, but that’s about it.  But a good thing is a good thing, whether it gets awarded or not.

MW: But does it not bother you ever?  

SB: That's the luck of the draw. You can’t predict. But when I think of it, I am not unhappy. I have made the kind of movie I wanted to make and made them the way I wanted to make, and on most days, it was not easy. I have managed without having to compromise on my ideas or ideologies or aesthetic standards. So, I don’t have anything to look back and feel unhappy about!

MW: It seems it’s the year for FTII alumni—Payal Kapadia became the first Indian filmmaker to win the Grand Prix while Santosh Sivan received the Pierre Angénieux Tribute and Chidanand S Naik won the La Cinef top prize—and you were an integral part of the film school. You taught there between1966 and 1973, were its chairman twice (1980–83 and 1989–92), and most of the actors you have worked with are also from FTII…   

SB: I was invited to take charge of it at one point, which I did, and I think we brought some order to that institution. I used to also conduct a film appreciation course and occasionally go there to give talks. Those are ancient history. But yes, I was very much a part of the endeavour of trying to develop the sense of cinema, make people conscious about the quality of cinema, and understand the art of cinema.

MW: But how do you view an institute like FTII? What’s your take on the importance or relevance of a film school?  

SB: Yes, many people think you don’t need film schools, and yes, some people can get into filmmaking without doing a formal course from a film school, but it really depends on the person. Some people, especially those who can’t create their own disciplines, need the structured guidance. Either you do it on your own, or you learn it at a film school. I didn’t go to a film school, but it was a difficult learning process, and if there was a film school when I had started off, I would have opted for it, provided I could afford it (laughs). That would have saved me the copious amount of time spent trying to figure everything out from scratch.

MW: And what’s your take on FTII as it stands today?  

SB: It needs to keep changing. Every educational institution needs to evolve according to the needs and demands of the time. The relevance of FTII will be only as long as it caters to these needs. Technology is constantly changing, you can’t have an institution that is not upgrading itself by embracing what’s new, the educational institutions need to be one step ahead of the change to anticipate what would be the needs of tomorrow.

MW: How excited are you about the cinema of this ‘tomorrow’?  

SB: Cinema is itself evolving to a large extent. Today you don't think of cinema in the way you did 30 years ago—it's an evolving medium. There's so much change that is taking place day by day because it's a technology-driven medium. Even the grammar keeps changing according to the technology. The manner in which people see is changing—not everybody watches movies on a big screen anymore, in fact, most watch it on their small mobile phone screens. The vocabulary of cinema is changing.  Today’s children watch a movie in a more evolved fashion than we did at their age, and that is because they are exposed to world cinema.

MW: But do you think technology is taking over cinema in a way that it is becoming its core, often diminishing the importance of good storytelling, acting, and other things?

SB: Storytelling can never become irrelevant. Technology will keep changing but ultimately, it is the human interest, the human experience, the humanity of the film that is of utmost importance. Pather Panchali is a great film—it is not great because of its technical brilliance but the humanity it contained… that made the experience of the film so extraordinary. One should embrace newer technologies but use them when required. What kind of a dazzle is it to just If you stack your movie up with what’s newest in market?

MW: What is keeping you busy these days? Another movie?  

SB: I am 90 now (laughs)! The great thing about filmmaking is that it is never just about filmmaking but all that goes into making of the film, and that includes preparations and learnings. I am reading a lot these days…not about cinema, because that has no consequence to me, but about life, because there is always something new there, you can never know everything about life, something that takes you by surprise.

Manthan (The Churning), starts with a government veterinary doctor arriving at a remote village in Gujarat to convince and consolidate the local farmers to start a dairy cooperative. But he soon realises the magnitude of the challenge as he faces vehement opposition from the local private dairy owner as well as the village sarpanch. The 134-minute Hindi film with a stellar cast that included the likes of Girish Karnad, Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Mohan Agashe, is a fictionalised take on India’s White Revolution—world's largest dairy development programme led by Dr. Verghese Kurien-helmed National Dairy Development Board that transformed India from being a milk-deficient nation into the world's largest milk producer. The movie was not only a commercial success when it had initially released, but also won the National Award for Best Hindi Feature and was India’s submission to the 1976 Oscars. It was also screened at the UN General Assembly. A restored version of the 1976 movie led by Film Heritage Foundation was screened at the Salle Buñuel theatre in the Cannes Classics sidebar of Cannes Film Festival alongside classics from Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa and Wim Wenders. The movie will be theatrically re-released on June 1 and June 2, in its restored ultra-high definition 4K avatar, across 38 cities on the occasion of World Milk Day. Talking about its relevance today, Benegal says: “India is a development story; in fact, it is a developing story, and it will continue to be as it should. And Manthan captures a part of that story.”