Arundhati Roy’s In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, a cult broadcast film, gets a loving restoration after four decades. A conversation with the man behind the undertaking: film archivist and restorer Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.

By Aishwarya Bodke

In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones played once on television during an unostentatious late-night slot on Doordarshan in 1989, before slipping away from sight. It continued to be watched, nevertheless, in muddled sound and spotty print, in bootlegged versions, at architecture schools and film clubs.

Written by Arundhati Roy a few years before she completed her Booker Prize-winning novel, and directed by environmentalist-filmmaker Pradip Krishen, the scrappy film, set in pre-Emergency India of 1974, draws a warm portrait of a group of fifth-year architecture students gearing up to present their final projects to a jury. The writer is also part of the cast and led the production design. The film features performances and cameos by several notable figures, captured here in their early screen moments. Roshan Seth plays the teacher while Arjun Raina is Annie. Raghubir Yadav, Deepika Deshpande Amin and Himani Shivpuri light up the screen with their brief appearances. A young Shah Rukh Khan pops up—by his own admission, his first time facing the camera—as an unnamed senior. Blink and you might miss him.

Drawing from Roy’s years at the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi, the film captures a fleeting time in a person’s life at the crisp cusp of adulthood. A time when the air in hostel rooms is filled with impossible hope, mingled with indecision and cigarette smoke. A Beatles song is always lurking within earshot. Essential irreverence flows in abundance. Everyone speaks in an exclusively casual tongue of the English language, only to be found on urban college campuses. The curious title, in fact, comes from a Delhi University slang. To ‘give it those ones’ is to perform one’s usual act.

Dissent, especially in the administrative capital of the country, was the instinct among students. We get a tease of the fierce essayist Roy would go on to become but here, she pens a softer vignette, folded in characters that are tender and curious oddballs. People you once knew. People you might have been. Dissent, though, still sits at the heart of the film; as a way of life but devoid of anger. It is that glorious state of being young and free, one that is currently treading slippery grounds. The film is not interested in the coming of age of these characters but rather the simple act of being a student. A kind of ‘radical freedom’ that Roy describes in her 2025 memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me. Viewers of the film today would perhaps run into a version of their past selves, only to be disenchanted by the system they have slowly become a part of.

This subculture of student milieu and flared fashion has re-emerged for viewers after nearly four decades. In March, a 4K version of the film, restored by the Film Heritage Foundation, played in theatres across India, after it premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival. The true spirit of the film would perhaps be undone without a fresh act of defiance. Roy pulled back from appearing at the festival due to the jury’s controversial remarks on the relationship between politics and cinema.

For this conviction and for this ‘television film’ to travel the world, there was but one path: restoration. FHF’s astounding work on the 16mm original camera negative, sound negative and a 35mm release print is a declaration of what preserving cinematic heritage can achieve. In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones also recently had its Australian premiere alongside Manthan, another classic restored by FHF.

We speak to Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Founder, FHF, about the labour and love that goes into restoring a film. Excerpts from the conversation:

ON Stage: In what condition did you receive the material before you began the restoration?
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur: Pradip Krishen was planning to donate all his film material and that’s when we got in touch. I visited his Delhi residence in January 2024 and was greeted by an extensive archive he had carefully preserved over the years. In it, I found a release print of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, digital audiotapes, as well as the shooting and dialogue scripts. We accessed the 16 mm original camera negative and sound negative from the National Film Archive of India.

As I began winding the film in Bombay, all the memories of watching it as a student at FTII came back to me. I knew then that this film needs to be seen, and I need to do real work on it. The colours had faded, the sprockets were damaged, there were a lot of scratches, tears, shrinkage, mould and halos. The sound was especially in poor condition. It was in a very fragile state.

When I called up Pradip and told him I wanted to restore it, he was quite surprised, because he was not expecting anything when I took the material. But it was a personal decision. I was so moved by the images and the memories it brought back. The hostel life in the film feels so familiar. It really stays with you.

OS: The process entailed hours of meticulous manual work. What kinds of inconsistencies demand that level of attention? How time-sensitive is the process?
SSD: It took about a year and a half. Restoration takes time. It is a long and fairly tedious process because there is bound to be a lot of manual work involved at the beginning. The film has to be repaired and treated before it can even go to a scanner. You are dealing with celluloid, so hands-on work is the only way. It is like surgery. There are tools that allow you to scan, to see through, to detect certain things. But you need a doctor. It’s all about the people. We work with L’Immagine Ritrovata, a specialised restoration lab in Bologna. There is both physical and digital restoration and a team of about 60 people works on the film at the same time.

As for timing, it is difficult to say whether it would have remained salvageable with more time. For me, it was about responding in that moment. You begin with what you have.

OS: How are the original grain and imperfections of the film retained so as not to compromise the raw, student film-like texture and visual language of the film?
SSD: I always compare it to restoring a painting. When you look at a painting by Van Gogh, Cézanne or Rembrandt, you would not want to alter the brushstrokes to make it look cleaner today. The grain in film is similar; they are the veins. That is where the life of the image flows. It is an essential part of cinematic history, language, texture and time itself, so we make sure to retain it. The film was shot on 16mm, which already comes with its own limitations. So, there is a significant amount of work involved in handling the material.

OS: Could you speak about working with the negative sound?
SSD: Sound was always done in lesser-known [brands of] film stocks. So, we have noticed that over time, the sound gets affected first because of the quality. When we did the sound scan, Pradip was very worried. The sound negative had deteriorated despite being in a protective case. But I think he was very impressed with the final results achieved in Bologna after relentless hours. He also did the subtitles of the film himself.

OS: What do you make of the artificial intelligence tools now available for restoration?
SSD: We do not use AI at the moment. Of course, it can be very useful in certain cases, but one has to be careful. In many instances, especially with sound, the use of AI can alter the quality and tone of the original voice, which takes it into a very different territory. Our aim is to always retain as much of the original as possible, and to stay as close to it as we can.

OS: The film has received an extraordinary response across India and in Berlin. The cast and crew—many of whom have since become doyens in their fields—came together to celebrate it. What did it mean to Pradip Krishen and Arundhati Roy to witness a film they made nearly 40 years ago find a new lease of life?
SSD: When we first set out to restore the film, both of them were surprised. But the overwhelming response across all screenings really moved them. Arundhati, in particular, was curious to know as to what it was about this film that compelled us to insist on this revival. But I think I had a sense of the answer all along. People were able to connect with the film, the language and the characters. Arundhati has written very easily. It is still remarkably contemporary and youthful. It indeed is a second life for the film.

This article was originally published in the May 2026 issue of ON Stage.
Picture Courtesy: Film Heritage Foundation.