A 4K restored version of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones, author and activist Arundhati Roy’s 1989 film about student angst and ambition, will be screened at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival as part of the Berlinale Classics segment.

The TV movie, written by Roy and directed by Pradip Krishen, is among 10 titles selected for the festival’s prestigious classics line-up. Krishen will attend the festival with Roy.

Roy, a Booker Prize-winning author, penned the screenplay and also appeared in a major role in the film, which was originally made for Indian public broadcaster Doordarshan.

Set in an architecture school in Delhi in the mid-1970s, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones is a campus comedy that follows Anand Grover, nicknamed Annie by his friends, a misguided visionary who lands in trouble after mocking the college principal, Y D Billimoria, known as Yamdoot.

The film featured a young Shah Rukh Khan and Manoj Bajpayee in small but significant roles, alongside lead performances by Arjun Raina, Roshan Seth and Roy herself. Khan and Bajpayee were both part of the Delhi theatre circuit at the time.

The story was partly inspired by Roy’s own experiences studying architecture at the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi. It marked her first screenplay. Roy and Krishen had earlier worked together on the 1985 colonial-era drama Massey Sahib and later reunited for 1992’s Electric Moon, again with Roy writing and Krishen directing.

Krishen said he is looking forward to presenting the restored film at the Berlinale with Roy and Shivendra Singh Dungarpur of the Film Heritage Foundation, which led the restoration.

“When we made In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones almost four decades ago, it was unique in the sense that no one was making films about people like us, about the English-speaking student subculture where the characters spoke their own patois. But the film went out of circulation after a single screening on television.

“When I donated my film material to Film Heritage Foundation, I didn’t imagine that In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones would be restored and have a second innings. I am delighted that the restoration has been selected for a world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival where a film that virtually went underground will be presented to the world on such a major platform,” he said, as per PTI.

The film won two National Awards — best screenplay for Roy and best feature film in English.

The restoration was carried out in 4K by the Film Heritage Foundation at L’Immagine Ritrovata’s laboratory, in collaboration with the National Film Development Corporation, the National Film Archive of India and Krishen.

The process used the original 16 mm camera negative along with a 35 mm print, bringing renewed clarity to a film long celebrated for its irreverent tone and closely observed portrait of student life.

“Film Heritage Foundation’s policy has been to restore rare gems of Indian cinema that are in danger of being lost and forgotten and showcase India’s rich film heritage to contemporary audiences. When Pradip Krishen donated a print of In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones to the foundation, I knew that this was a film that must be restored,” Shivendra Singh Dungarpur said.

“Shot on 16 mm, In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones was a pathbreaking film at the time it was made - arguably the first 'English' film, irreverent and idiosyncratic, with a screenplay and dialogues that captured so authentically the student milieu of the ‘70s,” Dungarpur added.

Festival organisers said Berlinale Classics 2026 marks the section’s most ambitious line-up to date, featuring restored works spanning from the silent era to the mid-1990s.