Smita Patil's retrospective film festival postponed to next year

The Smita Patil's family is going through a lot of mixed emotions. It has been a month of emotional upheaval of where they are proud to see Prateik making a debut on celluloid through Kiran Rao's Dhobi Ghat. While at the same time, they are missing their Smita Patil the most.

To mark the beginning of the 25th death anniversary of Smita Patil, the Smita Patil Foundation, an organization that has been instrumental in keeping the memories of Smita Patil alive, wanted to organize a retrospect of her films in India in various metro cities just like they had a retrospect in New York by Lincoln Film Center.

Arth, Bhoomika, Manthan, Bhavani Bavai, Mirch Masala, Umbatta, Bazaar, Mandi, Akaler Sandhene, Abhinatree were the shortlist films to be screened at the festival.

It was for this that Patil family approached Kiran Rao and Aamir Khan to help with logistical support and sure enough that Kiran wanted to do anything to make this happen.

However, unfortunately, all this could not kick off on Dec 13, Smita's death anniversary, as most of the prints were not readily available. And those available were not in shape to be screened at the retrospect. Some prints are not in proper state and need to be restored.

After a lot of too and fro, the Patils have decided to restore all the prints and hold the retrospective next year.

Says Manya Patil Seth, Smita Patil's sister "We were very keen on holding a retrospective for Smita this year, the way it was held in New York. However, due to the bad condition the prints were in, we were unable to materialise our plans. But we plan on holding the retrospective next year after we restore all the prints."