Dev Benegal’s English, August restored version to screen at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival
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Poster of English, August Photograph: (X)
Based on Upamanyu Chatterjee’s bestselling 1988 novel, English, August is an irreverent, darkly comic exploration of post-colonial identity. It follows a young man from an elite, Westernized background cast adrift in the alien, bureaucratic landscape of small-town India.
The Venice International Film Festival has officially announced that the newly restored 4K version of Dev Benegal’s landmark, award-winning film English, August (1994) will celebrate its World Premiere in the prestigious Venice Classics Competition at the upcoming 83rd edition of the festival.
This selection marks the third consecutive year that Film Heritage Foundation (FHF), the not-for-profit organisation responsible for the restoration, has been invited to showcase a world premiere of its cinematic restorations on the global stage in Venice, following Girish Kasaravalli’s Ghatashraddha in 2024 and Bimal Roy’s Do Bigha Zamin in 2025.
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Based on Upamanyu Chatterjee’s bestselling 1988 novel, English, August is an irreverent, darkly comic exploration of post-colonial identity. It follows a young man from an elite, Westernized background cast adrift in the alien, bureaucratic landscape of small-town India.
The landmark film will be presented at Venice by director Dev Benegal, lead actor Rahul Bose, producer and production designer Anuradha Parikh, and Film Heritage Foundation Director Shivendra Singh Dungarpur.
‘English, August’: What is it about?
Agastya Sen nicknamed “August” is a young, urban, English-speaking “Generation X” Indian. He listens to Bob Dylan and Miles Davis, reads Marcus Aurelius, and moves easily through the cultural inheritance of a Westernized elite. He is training to become a civil servant—an officer in the Indian Administrative Service, the most influential cadre of the state.
English, August is a portrait of a young man adrift and a wry, darkly comic exploration of post-colonial identity suspended between worlds—intimate, irreverent, and quietly unsettling.
The movie stars: Rahul Bose, Salim Shah, Yogendra Tikku, Shivaji Satham, Veerendra Saxena, Tanvi Azmi, Mita Vasisht, S. Gopalakrishnan, Gyan Shivpuri, Paromita Vohra, Vivek Shah.
