Kerala filmmaker John Abraham’s cult classic Amma Ariyan’s restored version to premiere at Cannes

Forty years after John Abraham made Amma Ariyan, one of the remarkable independent films to come out of Kerala, a 4K restoration of the film is set to be premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. The film with a cult following, restored by the not-for-profit organisation Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) is the only Indian feature film selected for world premiere at the festival this year. The premiere is scheduled on May 16.

John, who began working on the film based on a sliver of an idea based on the suicides of persons associated with the Naxalite movement, followed an alternative method of production and distribution with his friends at the Odessa Film Collective. The collective staged street plays and screened films to collect voluntary contributions from the public to make the film. Although it was never released in the theatres, the film has acquired a cult following over the years.

Restored version of John Abraham’s Amma Ariyan.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, director, Film Heritage Foundation, told The Hindu that his memories of Amma Ariyan goes back to his student days at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where legendary archivist P.K. Nair used to show the film to the students. “He used to tell us beautiful stories about John. At the institute, it was one of my favourite films. The restoration was challenging as we had no original camera negative to work with. The whole process, from searching out the last surviving unsubtitled print from the National Archives to identifying the copyright holder at the Odessa collective to restoring the print took close to 5-6 years, with the restoration work alone taking 2 years,” he says.

After initial conservation work in India, restoration was carried out at L’Immagine Ritrovata at Bologna and Digital Film Restore Private Limited.

The Film Heritage Foundation’s restorations of Aravindan’s Thamp, Aribam Syam Sharma’s Ishanou, Shyam Benegal’s Manthan, Satyajit Ray’s Aranyer Din Ratri and Sumitra Peries’s Gehenu Lamai were premiered at Cannes over the past five years.

Amma Ariyan’s editor Bina Paul, who was closely involved in the restoration work, especially in securing permissions from the collective, says that it is a film that needs to be seen widely by the younger generation.

“When I watched the film after a long time, I realised that it has a timeless quality and stands the test of time. All the debates that are very current had already been looked at in Amma Ariyan’s form, especially the use of documentary elements. When it comes to Cannes, John will also finally get the deserved recognition and the film will be available to many more people,” says Ms. Paul, who will be among the presenters of the film in Cannes.

Cinematographer Venu, who shot the film, is glad that the restoration team retained the original ruggedness of the film, from the rough tone and grain to the uneven exposures.

Gerald Duchaussoy, Head of Cannes Classics states, has conveyed to the FHF that Amma Ariyan is one of the best films the festival has received this year. He said he was blown away by the intensity which spread throughout the film, the camera movements, the black and white imagery and the political atmosphere.