Berlinale 2026: Arundhati Roy’s cult film In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones and the ‘lunatic fringe’ goes to Berlin

In the archetypal movie she ever wrote, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, Arundhati Roy wears a reddish sari with a hat. I inquire if the colour is political, and she responds with a laugh: “Well, yes, it’s red. It’s a batch of things. You tin work immoderate you privation into it. I conscionable emotion that red. The [book overgarment of] Mother Mary Comes to Me is that red, too.”

The 1989 movie was perceived to beryllium lost, barring a atrocious people connected YouTube. But present the whimsical cult field drama is restored, and acceptable for a satellite premiere. Roy shares, however, that she hasn’t been capable to rejoice due to the fact that her beloved dog, Maati K. Lal, passed distant past week.

Annie... will person its satellite premiere astatine Berlinale Classics successful the 76th Berlin International Film Festival this month, 37 years aft it was telecast (just once) connected Doordarshan. Both Roy and the film’s manager Pradip Krishen dependable bemused astatine the thought of a planetary signifier for a tiny project. “From today’s vantage point, it’s rather a wacky story,” Roy remarks.

The quality is well-timed though, pursuing connected the heels of the Booker Prize-winning author’s memoir, Mother Mary..., which flew disconnected the shelves the infinitesimal it landed 5 months ago. “It’s axenic coincidence,” Roy attests. Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of Film Heritage Foundation, which has restored the 16mm movie successful 4K resolution, adds, “We are besides moving on Pakeezah, Amma Ariyan, Samskara, and Imagi Ningthem. Annie… is the lone 1 that was acceptable to beryllium sent. This is the archetypal clip I person entered a movie successful Berlin [festival].”

The movie was made for ₹12 lakh; Roy worked connected each 3 of Krishen’s films: Massey Sahib (1985), Annie…, and Electric Moon (1992). She besides donned 3 roles for Annie…: screenplay writer, actor, and creation director-cum-production designer. “We were regarded by everyone arsenic lunatic fringe. That’s a badge we wore rather proudly. Even wrong the caller question cinema oregon parallel cinema, we were the outliers,” says Krishen, the filmmaker-turned- environmentalist. Roy and Krishen were joined and stay large friends.

Rediscovery and restoration

In 2024, Delhi-based Krishen was moving retired of the location helium had lived successful for 50 years. In his basement, helium recovered six ample alloy trunks afloat of aged movie materials. He was going to vessel them disconnected to a kabaadi (scrap dealer) until a person connected him with Dungarpur. The film’s 16mm archetypal camera antagonistic and dependable antagonistic were astatine the National Film Archive of India, Pune, and the remainder — a blown-up 35mm merchandise print, integer audiotapes, shooting script, and dialog publication — travelled from Delhi to Mumbai. The negatives had perforation, emulsion damage, fading, breached splices, tears, scratches, shrinkage, mould and halos.

After hours of manual work, integer restoration and colour grading, the scans were sent to L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory successful Bologna for further restoration. “There was colour fading successful respective sections; it was besides a shaky film,” says Dungarpur, who had archetypal seen the movie successful the aboriginal ’90s arsenic a Film Television Institute of India student. “Sound was different challenge. It had mediocre prime mono [single track], with important electrical noise, distortion, gaps and galore drops.” But, helium adds, “when you’re restoring a Taj Mahal, you don’t marque the marble amended than the ones Shah Jahan had put. You effort and lucifer the beauty”.

The restoration took 18 months, and Krishen was called successful for the subtitles due to the fact that adjacent though it was successful English, it was idiosyncratic of the ’70s pupil milieu [Annie… was acceptable successful 1974]. Roy approves of the outcome. “It hasn’t been restored into immoderate glossy tech fantasy. It’s conscionable arsenic benignant of grainy and scrappy arsenic it’s meant to be. And that’s beautiful,” she says.

Making of an oddball title

Arjun Raina, who played the titular relation of a misguided visionary courting trouble, shares a vivid memory. “When I [his quality Annie, abbreviated for Anand Grover] got slapped by histrion Yuvraj Singh successful the constabulary station, the existent presumption location serviceman scolded Singh, saying ‘Tujhe gaal laal karna nahin aata, main karke dikhata hoon [you can’t adjacent slap; fto maine amusement you]. Luckily, it did not necessitate different take,” says Raina, present a Melbourne-based Kathakali dancer, playwright, and an acting dependable and code coach, adding, “Annie is inactive giving it those ones successful life.”

‘Giving it those ones’ often implies a habitual oregon eccentric routine. “It was specified a assemblage happening backmost then. It seemed similar the evident title,” Roy says, arsenic Krishen adds, “I wanted radical from Delhi University astatine the clip to beryllium capable to recognise the rubric arsenic being theirs. The archetypal rubric was ‘Chapter Five’, due to the fact that the movie was astir the fifth-year students astatine School of Planning and Architecture [SPA]. But it sounded excessively mundane.”

Krishen remembers however portion shooting connected Delhi’s streets, immoderate passers-by asked what the film’s sanction was. Knowing the afloat rubric would gully puzzled looks, the cameraman said: “Those Ones.” Ever since then, it came to beryllium known as Do Jawan, overmuch to the makers’ amusement. Its precise archetypal screening was astatine the Max Mueller Bhavan Delhi to a packed hallway of young architecture students. “They were excited to ticker this mentation of themselves connected screen,” says Krishen.

The other of Bollywood

Roy admits that she utilized to get offended due to the fact that radical thought it was a documentary. “Because, I suppose, it moves truthful easily, is truthful real,” she says. “We were looking for radical who were not beauteous oregon good-looking, but somewhat screwed-up... looking for the other of Bollywood. It was adjacent fringe to parallel cinema. The lightness comes from america not having immoderate ambitions.”

Some of the lines in Annie… stay with you done life. Goa-based accumulation decorator Aradhana Seth (Fire, Earth, Don), who was 1 of the adjunct directors connected the film, says each clip she sees caller operation with flawed predisposition (for instance, formation cottages that don’t look the sea), she’s reminded of the movie and what Yamdoot (principal Y.D. Billimoria, essayed by Roshan Seth) says to Annie erstwhile helium presents his architecture project: “But my beloved donkey, person you forgotten each astir orientation?”

Yamdoot’s character, Roy says, “was based connected our main Cyrus Jhabvala [husband of Booker Prize and Oscar-winning novelist-screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala]. People were truly terrified of him. Except for me. I had nary home, I had nary ambition, thing to fear. He utilized to similar maine for that. And telephone maine ‘animal’ for immoderate reason. In the film, his quality calls Annie animal. Jhabvala saw the movie and loved it”.

In which SRK gets a cameo

Unlike parallel cinema, which zoomed into the lives of, say, a motortruck operator oregon farmer, films like Annie… showed the municipality youth. “It was akin to the mode we were surviving [messy hostels, pupil bonhomie], not a world acold removed from america but 1 we lived. It was made successful our vocabulary,” says Aradhana. “I don’t retrieve different movie similar this.”

Fresh retired of Jamia Millia Islamia, the movie was her archetypal paid gig — arsenic it was for the galore aspiring actors successful it, astir of whom were coming from Barry John’s TAG (Theatre Action Group). Shah Rukh Khan bagged a forgettable cameo, arsenic the pb (the precocious Rituraj Singh) was already formed — and SRK “didn’t travel up to the mark, helium didn’t basal retired arsenic idiosyncratic who was a bully actor”, admits the director.

Actress Divya Seth (Jab We Met, Sir, Article 370), who was doing treble shifts, parallelly moving connected a Doordarshan serial with filmmaker Lekh Tandon, recalls, “It was rather a magical time. We were a clump of friends; the jokes became in-house.” The mode Cecil Qadir, a teacher looking astatine a student’s project, enunciates his displeasure, “with twinkling, beady eyes, ‘But this is ho-ree-bal!’; adjacent contiguous we accidental it similar that erstwhile thing is awful”, Divya says with a laugh.

Lingua franca of freedom

In 1987, Roy and Krishen’s large project, the humanities play piece Bargad, which they had been moving connected for years, “had gone down the tubes”, says Roy. Then they’d heard that Doordarshan was backing tiny films. “I wanted to constitute astir what I knew, not astir things that were unfamiliar oregon probe based,” she adds. “Like I said successful the publication [Mother Mary…], for me, the schoolhouse of architecture was a extremist liberation from a beauteous troubled abstraction that I came from. It represented extremist state to maine and I wanted to constitute astir that — and the state progressive a deficiency of ambition, having nary money.”

Roy remembers however she and a person carried a assemblage mate’s favourite moped successful the assistance up to the 5th level and parked it astatine his desk. “It was astir ridiculous to beryllium wealthy, person each that worldly and to amusement off. The much ragged we were, the much respected. That’s wherefore I support saying, Annie… is simply a stance,” Roy says. “Obviously, I was not penning astir the astir deprived sections of society, but it was inactive not precocious privilege. There was specified a diverseness of students, a diverseness of kinds of English. We were each from places [the Northeast, Odisha, Bengal, Kerala] wherever the lone connection we had successful communal was English.”

Krishen and Roy worked hard to springiness it the benignant of connection and subculture they had some grown up in, 10 years apart, successful Delhi University. “We spoke a precise circumstantial benignant of English that was besides precise comic and beautiful,” Roy says. “For me, it was truthful important to observe it, due to the fact that astir radical successful those days would marque amusive of Indian English.”

It’s an thought that’s applicable contiguous too, erstwhile Gen Z lingo is getting a batch of attention. “Among the younger demographics, connection games are ever much agile and nimble. Every procreation has its ain slant and acquisition connected English, similar however we instrumentalise, due and wield our ain versions of it,” says Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Shaunak Sen (All that Breathes), who has tasted varying registers of English assimilation astatine Delhi University, Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Sen adds that from today’s vantage point, Annie… will consciousness similar an ephemeral, transient moment. “But that’s the occupation of bully pieces of cinema — they’re capable to pin down things authentically, articulate the linguistic zeitgeist, and eschew immoderate benignant of homogenisation, fto unsocial linguistics.” According to filmmaker Kanu Behl (Titli, Agra), the lone quality backmost past was that “instead of having a cosmopolitan connection that astir becomes a caller dictionary [which is existent for the procreation now], we were making our ain codas successful our ain determination languages”.

Days of ‘jugaad’

“It was a batch of jugaad, everybody was connected it,” adds Aradhana, who’d thrust Krishen and Roy location successful a Maruti with 2 chickens Sadhana and Sangeeta [that diagnostic successful the film] atop, whose parents’ location became Yamdoot’s successful the film, and whose friend’s and brother’s apparel contributed to the cast. Roy remembers however amusement of privilege was frowned upon. At SPA, she and a person carried a assemblage mate’s favourite moped up the assistance to the 5th level and parked it astatine his desk. “It was astir ridiculous to beryllium wealthy, person each that worldly and to amusement off, the much ragged we were, the much respected. That’s wherefore I support saying, Annie… is simply a stance,” Roy opines.

Cinema that resists

Roy writes successful her memoir, “Nobody could person been much shocked than Pradip and maine when Annie… won 2 National Awards, 1 for Best Screenplay and the other, my favourite grant of each time, ‘Best Film successful Languages Other Than Those Specified successful Schedule VIII of the Indian Constitution’. A very Annie award.”

She calls the awards a “sweet revenge”. Roy adds, “If I were to archer the truth, erstwhile I won that Best Screenplay grant for Annie, it was an important moment, not due to the fact that of the grant arsenic such, but due to the fact that I was a kid adjacent to Pradip. And radical [men, mostly] were perpetually taking maine for his assistant, asking maine to constitute but not request credit. For a overmuch younger pistillate to travel retired from nether his shadows, it’s not a tiny thing. I swam against the current. Now I punch precocious supra my weight. It’s heads of state, not mothers and lovers.”

In 2015, aft Mohammed Akhlaq, 52, was lynched by a mob successful Uttar Pradesh, Roy and Krishen returned their National Awards.

Can an unfiltered movie like Annie… be made today? “I don’t deliberation thing is impossible. But I deliberation everything has go truthful contentious, the aerial is truthful charged, and truthful it’s not casual astatine each to marque abstraction for this benignant of gentle, defeated young people, not taking themselves seriously, not good dressed, the other of what happens today,” Roy says, “Today, everything is negotiated with a hammer. There was an easiness then, which is present a uncommon thing. It’s precise hard to support that lightness of touch. But I feel, it is incumbent connected america arsenic writers and filmmakers to assertion it. We can’t conscionable support blaming the system. We besides person to bash our enactment and marque the space.”

Film scholar-historian Amrit Gangar adds that successful our culturally vibrant country, “there are ever voices of ‘resistance’ — unfastened oregon hidden, eloquent oregon quiet. That niche has to beryllium created by an imaginative mind”.

It would gladden Krishen’s heart, who rues that nary of his films has been commercially released successful Indian cinemas, to cognize that Annie… will merchandise successful theatres successful March (13-15), arsenic Dungarpur lets on.

Limited channels of release

In the ’70s and ’80s, the country was astatine the forefront of the indie/parallel cinema renaissance — whether through the NFDC (National Film Development Corporation), which produced Krishen’s Massey Sahib, oregon Doordarshan. “That abstraction has shrunk now; the wide ecosystem is broken,” says filmmaker Kanu Behl (Titli, Agra).

Gangar notes that erstwhile multiplexes started successful India successful 1997, “independent filmmakers thought their films would get theatrically released. It ne'er happened, prevention successful uncommon cases [Madhusree Dutta’s 7 Islands and a Metro (2006), Paresh Kamdar’s Khargos (2009), Rajat Kapoor’s Ankhon Dekhi (2013)].”

According to Sen, “The archetypal committedness and euphoria astir streamers is dormant successful India. Now, with deficiency of infrastructure, planetary co-productions are becoming important because the indie circuit is inactive figuring retired however to money smaller films.” And what film societies did for smaller yet genre-defining films similar Kumar Shahani’s Maya Darpan (1972), channels specified as Signal, Telegram and WhatsApp are doing today. Vinay Shukla’s documentary While We Watched (on journalist Ravish Kumar, formerly with NDTV) was wide circulated via these messaging apps.

Indians astatine Berlinale 2026

Jury: Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (international jury; Competition); Shaunak Sen (documentary grant jury); Saagar Gupta (Teddy Award [LGBTQIA+ films] jury)

Classics: In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones

Forum: R. Gowtham’s Members of a Problematic Family, Madhushree Dutta’s Flying Tigers

Forum Expanded: Utkarsh’s A Circle arsenic the Center of the Whole

Generation Kplus: Rima Das’s Not a Hero, Amay Mehrishi’s Abracadabra

Berlinale Talents: Tanushree Das, Subarna Dash, Anadi Athaley, Kislay, Thanikachalam S.A., Devraj Bhoumik, Vedant Srinivas

Berlinale Co-Production Market: Nihaarika Negi’s Feral

South Asia programming delegate: Anu Rangachar

tanushree.ghosh@thehindu.co.in