G Aravindan's Thamp to be screened at London Film Fest 2022
Aravindan was one of India's most extraordinary filmmakers and a leading light of the New Indian Malayalam cinema of the 1970s and '80s
Legendary filmmaker G Aravindan's acclaimed Malayalam film Thamp (1978) has been selected as the only Indian film to be screened in the Treasures Section of the BFI London Film Festival 2022. The screening is set to happen on Friday.
Film Heritage Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation, Prasad Corporation embarked on a mission to restore the acclaimed film in association with The Film Foundation's World Cinema Project and Cineteca di Bologna.
The restoration was selected for a red-carpet premiere at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival this year as the only Indian film to have a world premiere in the Cannes Classic section of the festival. Ramu Aravindan, the son of the late filmmaker said, "It's just wonderful that Aravindan's restored Thamp is getting screened at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival. Thamp was screened at the 1979 London Film Festival. And, his next film, Kummatty, also recently restored, was screened at the 1980 edition. It's special that this film is getting screened again after 43 years at the same event. I think the restoration brings back to life a very specific kind of visual-poetic sensibility that the present generation of film viewers may have heard about but couldn't get to watch earlier."
Aravindan's Thamp is a poetic, allegorical film, that explores the transience of human relationships and the rootlessness of the marginalised through the ripples created in the bucolic existence of a village on the banks of a river by the arrival of a roving circus troupe.
Aravindan was one of India's most extraordinary filmmakers and a leading light of the New Indian Malayalam cinema of the 1970s and '80s. In a tragically short career spanning from 1974 to 1991, he made 11 films, and 10 documentaries and almost all of his films received national or state awards.