Amitabh Bachchan turned 80 on October 11 and in order to honour that, the Film Heritage Foundation, led by its founder-director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, curated a one-of-a-kind retrospective, that has become one of the biggest, in terms of footfalls, in recent times.
Titled ‘Bachchan: Back to the Beginning’, the retrospective took place at the PVR chain of multiplexes in 19 cities across the country and brought back Bachchan classics like Deewaar to Don, Amar Akbar Anthony to Mili and more to the big screen. The Telegraph chatted with Dungarpur to know more about the smash-hot initiative and the road ahead.
Congratulations for the huge response to ‘Bachchan: Back to the Beginning’....
I would say that this is the success of cinema as a whole. This has never happened before. People from New York called me to say that this is the largest festival retrospective to ever take place in the world! In four days, we did 500 shows, and all were packed houses! From Kolkata, I have got at least 15 calls asking if these films could also be screened at non-PVR theatres.
Two theatre owners, who are not PVR, have called me to ask if they can show these films. Basically, none of the films playing at the same time have drawn as much crowds as Mr Bachchan’s films have.
We had to increase shows of Don... the craze has been so much. This festival brought back cinema, it brought back audiences to cinemas. It brought back the sheer joy of dancing in the aisles and in front of the screen... you have seen the videos, so you know. This is what the power of cinema was and it’s just the magic of Mr Bachchan and his movies that has made this such a success.
What was the genesis of this festival? Had you been planning this for a while?
The Film Heritage Foundation (of which Dungarpur is the founder-director) is always in the business of preserving and restoring films... we have just restored Thamp, which is a Malayalam film, which was a rare film to be selected at Cannes this year and which also played at the London Film Festival. We have also restored Kummatty (by G. Aravindan). As you know, this is a regular part of what we do.
Mr Bachchan is the brand ambassador of the Film Heritage Foundation. During an edition of the Kolkata International Film Festival, Mr Bachchan had said on stage that he hoped Film Heritage Foundation would work closely with the government of West Bengal to preserve some rare and celebrated films.
Being so close to him, I started thinking three-four months ago that how should we celebrate Mr Bachchan’s 80th birthday. And what better way than to bring back some of his most celebrated films. We came up with the title ‘Bachchan: Back to the Beginning’ because we wanted to look at his early films. We wanted a mix of films that would include the angry young man phase but also showcase the softer side... films like Mili, Chupke Chupke, Abhimaan.... And, of course, Deewaar, Kala Patthar, Don are all quintessential Amitabh Bachchan films.
We wanted to throw it open to a bigger audience... we needed to do a peoples’ festival for Mr Bachchan. I called up Ajay Bijli (of PVR) and initially, he said that let’s do this on a smaller scale. Nobody had the faith that it would work... only I was convinced that this was heritage cinema, because this what we wanted to do because that’s what we do at the Foundation... we restore and preserve cinema and make it accessible to everyone.
Thankfully, we finally got to do this on a very large scale. We have been able to show the films at 19 cities across the country at the same time. We have had to add extra shows. People have gone mad, there have been standing ovations... they have loved every bit of it.
There has been a lot of hard work in getting the material, convincing producers... and that has been a big challenge for us. Some of the material was digitised and some was not. Everyone was like, ‘Why are you doing it, Shivendra? All the films are on YouTube... who is going to come?!’ The Hindi film industry is doing pretty badly now and no one wanted to do a project that would sink it further. We didn’t have a single sponsor... the foundation spent all its money to do this. Only (producer) Siddharth Roy Kapur came forward and supported some bit of this initiative. We even put up an exhibition of memorabilia from Mr Bachchan’s films.
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (right) with Abhishek Bachchan at the retrospective
How does this initiative benefit the Film Heritage Foundation going forward?
As a Foundation, we needed to take a leap and this has been that leap for us. It’s brought classic cinema back. The Foundation has always strived to bring back classic cinema of not only the big stars, but also celebrate our technicians of yore. And with this retrospective, we have not only paid homage to Mr Bachchan, but also to his co-stars and the technicians associated with his films. The audience at these screenings were clapping when they saw names like Salim-Javed, Yash Chopra and Manmohan Desai flashing on the screen.
Jaya Bachchan came to watch Mili, which was the opening film of the festival. She was in tears and was completely mesmerised. Javed Akhtar came to watch Deewaar and there was a standing ovation. Shabanaji (Azmi) got a standing ovation at the end of Amar Akbar Anthony and clapped. When those films released, they became hits but there was no standing ovation because they have only become classics now. And this has reached out to the young generation as well. Ananya Panday watched Satte Pe Satta and Amar Akbar Anthony back to back. The biggest success of this festival was that 70 per cent was a young audience. This festival has brought back happiness and smiles and community viewing.
Does this give you the impetus to have more retrospectives?
Absolutely! The whole Mrinal Sen archive is with the Film Heritage Foundation. We also have the archive of Mr Goutam Ghose and Buddhadeb Dasgupta’s films. His Uttara is a film that I want to restore and show on the big screen. I was just speaking to Kunal Sen (Mrinal Sen’s son) about bringing Mrinalda’s films back to the theatres in his centenary year of birth in 2023. But curation and presentation of a retrospective is very important. It’s not just about bringing a couple of films together in a roster and hoping people turn up. The audience is always ready to watch anything that is good... we have to present it to them in a good way.
As a Foundation, we also need producers, directors and those who have the rights to a film to now be convinced that they can rerelease their films and make money. Hopefully, ‘Bachchan: Back to the Beginning’ has done that.