Restored version of Girish Kasaravalli's 'Ghatashraddha' screened at Venice Film Festival

The restored version of legendary filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli’s 1977 film “Ghatashraddha” had a world premiere at the ongoing 81st Venice International Film Festival, the not-for-profit organisation Film Heritage Foundation said.

The 108-minute Kannada movie, based on a short story of the same name by U.R. Ananthamurthy, was showcased in the Venice Classics section on September 4.

The restoration of “Ghatashraddha” — titled “The Ritual” in English — is a collaboration between Hollywood master director Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of FHF, with funding from “Star Wars” creator George Lucas and Mellody Hobson’s Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.

It was conducted at L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, Italy, considered one of the best restoration labs in the world.

The FHF, based out of Mumbai, said the film was received well at the gala. Kasaravalli and Dungarpur attended the screening.

“A wonderful photograph at the world premiere of the newly restored ‘Ghatashraddha’ (1977) at the Venice Film Festival yesterday with Alberto Barbera, Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival, renowned filmmaker and director of the film, Girish Kasaravalli, Davide Pozzi, Director L’Immagine Ritrovata, Elena Tammaccaro and Caterina Palpacelli of L’immagine Ritrovata and Film Heritage Foundation Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur. We are proud to say that the film was very well received and a discovery for many people,” a post on the foundation’s official Instagram page read.

Ghatashraddha is a ritual that was practised by the orthodox Brahmins in the old days.

The film revolves around Yamuna, a child widow, who lives with her father Udupa. Yamuna’s father runs a residential Vedic school for Brahmin boys where Naani, a new student at the school, develops a deep bond of affection with her.

“Yamuna has a forbidden affair with a school teacher and becomes pregnant. Yamuna attempts suicide but is rescued by Naani. She then tries to abort her child secretly, but the schoolboys spy on her and reveal her secret to her father.

“She is excommunicated from the village by her father, who performs a funeral rite for his living daughter. The heartrending end of the film sees Naani going back home with his father when he spots a forlorn Yamuna sitting alone under a tree on the outskirts of the village with her head shaved,” read the film’s synopsis on the gala’s official website.

In the story of “Ghatashraddha”, the subjugation of Yamuna by the Brahmin orthodoxy, and of Naani by his colleagues, are knitted so organically that the personal and the political blend together, said Kasaravalli.

“The fertility cult is central here: Indian society revels in it, but in practice it abhors it. As we were designing the style of the film, me, my brother and other visual artists of Karnataka felt we needed to shed more light on the fertility cult and the Kundalini art,” the filmmaker said in a statement.

Produced by Suvarnagiri Films, “Ghatashraddha” features an ensemble cast of Meena Kuttappa, Narayana Bhat, Ajit Kumar, Ramaswamy Iyengar Udupa, Jagannath Suresh, and Shantha H.S. Parvathi Ramakrishna.

It is among the 18 films that were restored over the past year, which will be premiered at the gala.

The Venice Film Festival opened on August 28 and will run through September 7.