Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy discussed the unauthorized use of Beatles songs in “In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones,” the growing presence of artificial intelligence in cinema, and the handmade aesthetic of independent filmmaking during a Q&A at BFI Southbank on July 15, following the U.K. premiere of the film’s 4K restoration.
On the film’s soundtrack, Roy said she and director Pradip Krishen never received a response from the Beatles after asking to use their music. “We wrote to them and said, ‘Can we use your music? We love you.’ They didn’t reply,” Roy said.
Roy said she saw a continuity between the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and her memoir “Mother Mary Comes to Me,” calling it “a worshiping at the altar of those four boys.”
Roy also drew a comparison between the film’s low-budget, handmade production and the polish of contemporary cinema, saying she preferred imperfect characters to synthetic ones. “People love the people who fumble and stumble and fail and are fucked up, and not the beautiful AI-generated characters on Ozempic,” Roy said, drawing laughter from the audience.
Discussing the making of the film, Roy said it was shot on essentially no budget, with hand-lettered credits and sketches she made herself. She described the scrappiness of the production as reflective of student life at the time. “It’s just a kind of radical freedom there in these ragged students,” Roy said.
The screening was part of the 17th London Indian Film Festival and marked the film’s U.K. premiere following its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year. Film Heritage Foundation carried out the restoration with Krishen’s involvement, working with lab partner L’Immagine Ritrovata. The team drew on surviving elements including a 16mm negative and matching soundtrack held by the National Film Archive of India, along with a 35mm print from Film Heritage Foundation’s own collection.
Roy co-wrote and starred in the film alongside Roshan Seth, Arjun Raina and Rituraj, with an early cameo from Shah Rukh Khan. She went on to write “The God of Small Things,” which won the Booker Prize in 1997, and more recently published the memoir “Mother Mary Comes to Me.”
The appearance came several months after Roy withdrew from the Berlin Film Festival over its refusal to comment on Gaza.
