Film Heritage Foundation‘s newly restored version of Pradip Krishen and Arundhati Roy‘s cult film “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” (1989) is making its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, marking a remarkable second life for a film that virtually disappeared after a single television screening.
The restoration represents a significant milestone for Film Heritage Foundation, marking the first time one of its projects has been selected for Berlinale Classics. Foundation director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who is also serving on the festival’s international jury headed by Wim Wenders, will present the 4K restoration alongside director Pradip Krishen.
Booker Prize-winning author Roy (“The God of Small Things”), who wrote the screenplay and starred in the Indian National Film Award-winning campus comedy, withdrew from the festival over the jury’s refusal to comment on Gaza. When asked about Roy’s withdrawal, Dungarpur offered no comment.
The 18-month restoration process began after Krishen donated his film materials to Film Heritage Foundation in 2024, including a 35mm release print, digital audiotapes, and the original shooting and dialogue scripts.
Set in a Delhi architecture school during the mid-1970s, “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” depicts student life through a lens rarely seen in Indian cinema at the time – English-speaking, westernized youth communicating in their own distinctive dialect. After airing once on Indian state broadcaster Doordarshan in 1989, the film vanished from circulation, becoming a cult favorite among those who tracked down degraded VHS copies or YouTube uploads.
The title character, Anand Grover – nicknamed “Annie” – is a perpetually failing fifth-year architecture student who keeps chickens in his dorm room. The Delhi University slang “gives it those ones” roughly translates to “does his usual thing,” which in Annie’s case means well-intentioned blundering and impractical idealism. His circle of friends includes Radha (played by Roy), a sharp-witted rebel, her boyfriend Arjun, a student called Mankind, and Kasozi from Uganda, who grinds his teeth while dreaming of dictator Idi Amin. The students’ antagonist is Prof. Y.D. Billimoria, whom they’ve dubbed Yamdoot, referring to the Hindu deity of death’s messenger.
The ensemble cast includes Roshan Seth, Arjun Raina, Rituraj, Isaac Thomas and Divya Seth. The film also marked the feature debut of superstar Shah Rukh Khan in a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance as Senior.
Shot with an intimate, documentary-like quality and featuring clever wordplay, the film depicts the friendships and youthful energy of students navigating academic life. Beneath the humor and hijinks lies a deeper current of anti-establishment sentiment and aspirations for social change.
The restoration proved technically challenging. Working from a 35mm release print blown up from the original 16mm negative, conservators discovered perforation damage, tears, scratches, shrinkage, mold and halos. Krishen helped Film Heritage Foundation access the 16mm original camera negative and sound negative from the National Film Archive of India. The elements required extensive manual repair before being sent to L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory in Bologna for digital restoration and color grading.
“The color correction of the film was time-consuming as there was colour fading in several sections,” Dungarpur tells Variety. He worked closely with Krishen throughout the process to ensure color accuracy and preserve the film’s authentic grain, even traveling to Bologna to oversee the final grading frame by frame.
“I was sharing work-in-progress scenes with Pradip to ensure that we got the colors right, to match the colors the way he had first shot the film and to ensure that we kept the authenticity of the grain of the film,” Dungarpur explains.
Sound restoration presented particular difficulties, with optical elements suffering from electrical noise, distortion, gaps and dropouts. Given the centrality of language and dialogue to the film’s appeal, Krishen prepared new subtitles for the restoration.
Dungarpur discovered the significance of the film while checking the print in Film Heritage Foundation’s conservation lab. “It struck me how contemporary the film seemed thirty seven years after it had its single outing on Doordarshan,” he says. “I felt that its slice-of-life approach to hostel life, its dialogue with its unique English patois, the uncertainties, pressures and ambiguity that faced young students, the camaraderie and small rebellions, would resonate with audiences even today. I felt that this cheeky, irreverent film should have its moment in the sun after decades of being lost in the shadows.”
For Dungarpur, who is also festival director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, the Berlinale represents an opportunity to occupy multiple roles at one of cinema’s most prestigious events. “It is exciting to be at the Berlinale wearing so many hats, in a manner of speaking, as it gives me a truly holistic view of films from contemporary emerging talents to classics at one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world,” he says.
Dungarpur established Film Heritage Foundation in 2014 as India’s only non-governmental organization dedicated to film preservation. His documentary work includes “Celluloid Man” (2012), which won two National Film Awards, and the seven-hour “CzechMate – In Search of Jiri Menzel” (2020), voted among the British Film Institute’s top five films of the year. In 2025, he received the Vittorio Boarini Award for outstanding contributions to safeguarding cinema as cultural heritage.
The international jury headed by Wenders will select the Golden and Silver Bear awards from 20 films in competition at the festival, which runs through Feb. 22.
The restoration premiere will proceed with Krishen and Dungarpur presenting the film. “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones” features cinematography by Rajesh Joshi, editing by A. Thyagaraju and production design by Roy herself. The film was restored in 4K at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory with funding provided by Film Heritage Foundation.
variety.com
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