SOUTHEAST ASIAN PREMIERE
4K Restoration
Year: 1978
Director: Govindan Aravindan
Language: Malayalam with English subtitles
Country: India
Runtime: 129 min
Rating: PG

Synopsis

A circus arrives in a small village, sets up a tent and begins its show. Their spellbinding antics enthral the local communities, who look upon with curious wonderment. But as the days go by, the lines between the observer and the observed start to blur, and the magic of the spectacular begins to find its way into the everyday.

Blending fiction with documentary, director Govindan Aranvindan worked with real circus performers, travelling with them to Thirunavaya in the southern Indian state of Kerala, where many of the townsfolk were encountering these shows for the first time in their lives. Aravindan’s film is a melancholic ode to the shifting nature of spectatorship and transience of human relationships.

Restored in 2022 by the Film Heritage Foundation, The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, and Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, restoration work was done at Prasad Corporation Pvt. Ltd.’s Post Studios, Chennai and L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The project was done in association with producer K. Ravindranathan Nair of General Pictures and the family of Govindan Aravindan.

Thamp is part of the film programme Parallels: Indian New Cinema (1965-1981). For the full programme, please click here. 

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