Restored 'Garm Hawa' for younger generation: M S Sathyu

A digitally restored version of 1973 classic 'Garm Hawa', which portrays the dilemma of a Muslim family after Partition, has hit the big screen again.

Its director M S Sathyu, who made the film on a shoe-string budget in the '70s, says the digitally re-mastered movie is for younger generation as they should know what took place in 1947.

"It is a story that was told with a lot of passion and dedication. You can see that in the performances, dialogues and photography. The re-mastered release is an attempt to reintroduce the film to the youth. They need to know what happened during Partition. They should be aware of the pain and sorrow that people went through at that time," Sathyu told PTI in an interview.

The post-Partition saga, restored by Indikino Edutainment, hit theatres yesterday in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Ahmedabad yesterday through PVR Director's Rare.

Based on an unpublished story by Ismat Chugtai, the film had some of the best creative minds coming together be it writers Kaifi Azmi, Shama Zaidi or actors like Balraj Sahni, Dinanath Zutshi, Farooq Shaikh and A K Hangal.

The story revolved around Agra's Mirza family which starts to tear apart after Partition. Elder brother Halim Mirza decides to immigrate to Pakistan as he feels there is no future for Muslims in India while his younger brother Salim, played by Sahni, stays back in hope of a better time only to see things get worse.

Recalling the problems that the 84-year-old director faced during the release of his film, Sathyu said this is a proper time to look back at the story.

"It is a very sensitive subject and it needed to be handled carefully. The film never lost its relevance and it has improved technically after restoration. The marketing is huge today unlike in the 70s," the director said.

R D Deshpanday of Indikino Edutainment, said the initial plan was to restore the film for a DVD release but once they watched the film, they decided to restore it for a theatrical release.

"It required to be restored for big screen. It was not released in a proper way in 1973. We wanted to take it to more people as it is a timeless classic. We have worked on the audio and video. It is now technically at par with today's films. It took us three and a half years and more than Rs one crore to restore the film," Deshpanday said.

He said after 'Garm Hawa' they want to restore other old classics including silent-era films.