As Chann Pardesi completes 40 years of its release, Chaanan Singh Sidhu and Simran Sidhu repackage this cinematic gem

Sheetal

AS a tribute to the legendary actors of Punjabi cinema, father and son, Dr Chaanan Singh Sidhu and filmmaker Simran Sidhu, bring Punjabi film Chann Pardesi once again to the theatres.

If the former shares a special bond with the original film, the latter makes use of his skills to restore this old gem from its original 35mm master negative. He has re-mastered it to high-definition digital and 5.1 surround sound. Chann Pardesi Remastered will release worldwide on May 27.

Many legends of Bollywood, including Amrish Puri, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Sushma Seth, Om Puri, and Raj Babbar, debuted with this film. It also stars Mehar Mittal, Sunita Dhir, Rajni Sharma and Rama Vij.

Chann Pardesi won the National Award for Best Feature Film in Punjabi in 1980, and went on to become a box office phenomenon after its release in 1981. Today, it is widely regarded as the greatest Panjabi film ever made.

It’s modern-day release will also celebrate the completion of 40 years of the Panjabi classic’s release and will serve as a tribute to the late legends Amrish Puri and Om Puri of Indian cinema and Mehar Mittal of Punjabi cinema, who are no longer with us.

As the trailer secured more than 2.5 million views, Chaanan Singh Sidhu, who bought the rights of the film to re-release it in theatres, shares his association with the film and its writer Baldev Gill.

He says, “I was a student at the Department of Zoology, Panjab University, and Baldev Singh, who has written this film, belonged to the Department of Indian Theatre. It was his first time as screenwriter, who later gave films like Jee Aayan Nu, Mitti Wajaan Maardi and Chaar Sahibzaade. We became friends around 1977-78 when he was working on the script of Chann Pardesi. He wanted to connect to someone in Mumbai and I knew Manmohan Singh, who was then studying in the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune. I wrote a letter to him and helped the two connect. He also came on board as the cinematographer.

Chaanan shares how filming the songs had drained out the entire budget of the movie and it was the conviction of the entire team which helped to overcome the monetary issues. Baldev even sold his land to make this film.

Once Chaanan and his son decided to re-release the film, they had to track down who had the rights of the film and then acquire them. The next step was re-mastering it negative by negative. The whole process took them more than three years. The pandemic delayed the release further.

Chaanan, whose family members lovingly call him Chann, shares how he settled down in the UK and it took him years to reconnect with Baldev. In other words, he is the real Chann ‘Pardesi’ who took 40 years to return this gem to Punjabi audience.

However, Chann Pardesi was not the original name of the movie. It was called Sajjan Bajh Hanera. When Chaanan and Baldev met a distributor in Jalandhar, he said, ‘If you have newbies and Mehar Mittal is not in the film, it’s gonna be ‘hanera’ for you.”

Chann Pardesi: Remastered was premiered at the UK Asian Film Festival.