Arundhati Roy’s 1989 film to screen at Berlinale Classics 2026

New Delhi, Jan 16 (PTI) A 4K restored version of “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones”, author and activist Arundhati Roy's cult 1989 movie about student angst and ambitions, will be screened at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival as part of the Berlinale Classics segment.

The Booker Prize-winning author penned the screenplay and also played a major role in the TV movie, which is among the line-up of 10 films for the film gala's coveted segment.

The film, which featured a very young Shah Rukh Khan and Manoj Bajpayee as part of the cast, was directed by her then husband Pradip Krishen, who will attend the festival with Roy.

Set in an architecture school in Delhi in the mid-1970s, "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones" is a whimsical campus comedy originally made for Doordarshan and later acquired cult status among film enthusiasts. It was a rare film that captured the spirit and anxieties of the student life of the time.

The movie's story combined humour with sharp social observation and followed Anand Grover, nicknamed Annie by his friends, a misguided visionary who gets into trouble for making fun of the principal Y D Billimoria known as Yamdoot.

The film was partly inspired by Roy's experiences of studying at the leading architecture institute, School of Planning and Architecture, in Delhi. This was the first screenplay by Roy, who also worked with Krishen for his first film, the 1985 colonial-period drama "Massey Sahib".

The duo later collaborated for 1992's "Electric Moon" with Roy once again writing the screenplay and Krishen taking on directing duties.

Besides Roy, "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones" also featured Arjun Raina and Roshan Seth in lead roles. Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan and acclaimed actor Manoj Bajpayee, who were both struggling in the Delhi theatre circuit at the time, appeared in small but significant roles.

In her memoir "Mother Mary Comes To Me" published last year, Roy recalled how the movie was greenlit by Doordarshan.

"My script was about life in the School of Architecture: the wacky anarchy of that campus, the stoned, bombed- out students and the dialect of English that we spoke - an inventive mix of Hindi and English. It was set in 1974. We called it 'In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones'. In Delhi University slang, ‘giving it those ones’ meant ‘doing one’s usual sh*t’," she wrote.

She also wrote about the film's first screening at Max Mueller Bhavan that received a request from an encore from the audience.

"Students jammed into the hall and crowded on to the floor. I was squashed among them in the dark. Within a few minutes the audience began to yell, roar with laughter and wolf- whistle through the film. They recognized themselves, their language, their clothes, their jokes, their silliness, and were delighted to have been deemed worthy of cinema.

"I was dazed. Thrilled. Word got out somehow - even in that pre-cell phone era - and before the screening ended, hundreds of other students had arrived at the gate demanding to see the film. Whoever was in charge at Max Mueller Bhavan that day sportingly allowed us to screen a second time," she wrote.

The film, which won two National Awards for best screenplay for Roy and best feature film in English, has been restored in 4K by the Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata’s laboratory, in collaboration with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) and Krishen.

The restoration used the original 16 mm camera negative along with a 35 mm print, bringing renewed clarity to a film often celebrated for its irreverent tone and sharply observed portrait of student life in late-1980s India.

Film Heritage Foundation, founded by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, is making its debut at the festival with the screening of "In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones".

According to festival organisers, Berlinale Classics 2026 represents the most ambitious line-up since the section was introduced, with works ranging from the silent era to the mid-1990s. PTI