Moving, funny, ridiculous, nostalgic – these were reactions from 1970s college-goers at a recent screening of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989), a campus film starring Arundhati Roy and featuring a cameo by Shah Rukh Khan. For many in the audience, the film revived memories of college days.

Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, who restored the film, described the screenings as a reminder of cinema’s magic. “It is the magic of cinema that we witnessed at the Delhi and Mumbai screenings. The audience in India reacted in the same manner as audiences in Germany did when the film premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival recently. I somehow knew that the film would work even after 38 years,” he shared.

When first made, the film’s characters were unlike anything on Indian screens – westernised, elite, English-speaking students portrayed with eccentricity and idealism, unlike the conventional characters that dominated Indian cinema at the time. Directed by Pradip Krishen and written by Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy, the film follows eccentric architecture students in a 1974 Delhi college through their final year.

Roy spoke about the strange experience of revisiting a film she made nearly four decades ago and said, “It takes a lot of courage to sit in a hall and watch yourself when you are 38 years younger. I certainly had nothing to do with the restoration. Even archiving – I’m terrible at it. I just throw things away.” 

Looking back at the screenplay, Roy added with candour, “When I looked at it recently, I thought, ‘What was I thinking?’ All I can say about this film is that it’s a celebration of utter ridiculousness. Maybe at a time like this, that’s all we have to celebrate.”

She spoke about how the film captures a different kind of youth culture. “Someone asked me what Gen Z would make of it. I don’t understand all these terminologies – Gen Z, X, Y. But when I look back, I see a group of young people who were radically different from each other. They forgive each other and celebrated each other’s eccentricities.”

Roy had initially planned to attend the screening at Berlinale but later withdrew screening at Berlinale but later withdrew when festival jury president Wim Wenders when festival jury president Wim Wenders made the statement, “We have to stay out made the statement, “We have to stay out of politics.” of politics.”

Arjun Raina, who played Annie, seeing the restored film decades later was unexpectedly emotional. He shared, “What I found very healing is that we suddenly have a heritage through this film.”

Reflecting on the spirit of the time, he offered a metaphor, “We were like creatures in a jungle – someone was a squirrel, someone was a deer – all these delightful beings living together. Then came the ’90s. The forest was cut, the wood became furniture, and our lives changed.”

Pradip Krishen shared that over the past 38 years, ten members of the cast and crew have passed away. He recalled a humorous moment from the shoot and said, “When we were filming on the street and people asked what the film was called, we shortened it to ‘Those Ones’. If someone asked, ‘Kaun si film ki shooting ho rahi hai ?’we’d say, ‘Those Ones Those Ones’ Later we overheard someone answering the same question answering the same question and saying, Do Jawan Do Jawan’”

Some will watch In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones (1989), which made it to theatres on March 13, to see author Arundhati Roy’s brush with acting. Others, to see Shah Rukh Khan in his pre-stardom era, as he appears in a brief role in Pradip Krishen’s directorial feature. While making the film in the late ’80s, had Krishen anticipated that Khan would go on to become a superstar?

“I didn’t expect Shah Rukh Khan to become as big a star as he did. When you have a bunch of young students working with you, you don’t quite imagine that one of them will become a megastar. I’m happy for him,” shared Krishen.

He added that Khan was “unhappy” about not getting a meaty role in the movie. “After he became a star, he said some unkind things about us. He said, ‘Those guys never recognized what a good actor I am.’ I guess that’s true. But he belongs to a genre of acting that didn’t suit the parts we were looking for.”

Last month, the movie was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival. Lead actor and writer Roy dropped out of the gala, criticizing festival jury president Wim Wenders’s statement that filmmakers should stay out of politics. We asked Krishen if he too considered withdrawing from the gala. “I was already in Doha when I learnt that Arundhati wasn’t coming. It was too late for me to bail out. I admire her courage to stand for her principles. The audience clapped when I said she had made this decision on principle.”