Irrfan Khan–Vidya Balan’s lost film The Last Tenant releases on YouTube after 26 years: How it was found

Six years after the death of Irrfan Khan, a long-lost project from the early phase of his career has found its way to audiences, this time on YouTube. Titled The Last Tenant, the film also features Vidya Balan in what is believed to be one of her earliest screen appearances, long before she became a household name in cinema.

The Last Tenant was originally made nearly 25 years ago, written and directed by Sarthak Dasgupta. But the film never reached audiences at the time. The reason: The original footage went missing, leaving the project incomplete and effectively shelved.

For years, the film remained an unfinished memory in Dasgupta’s early career, with little hope of recovery.

That changed unexpectedly when a VHS tape resurfaced during a house shift, allowing the filmmaker to revisit what had been lost for decades and eventually restore it for release.

The restored film was released on April 29, marking Irrfan Khan’s death anniversary, as a tribute to the actor whose career left a lasting impact on Indian cinema. Khan passed away on April 29, 2020, after a prolonged illness, leaving behind a body of work that continues to be revisited by audiences.

Since going live on YouTube, the film has drawn steady attention, crossing nearly two lakh views.

In the film, Irrfan Khan appears alongside Vidya Balan, though the two never went on to collaborate in a released film again. This project remains their only on-screen pairing.

The story follows a troubled musician who finds temporary refuge in an abandoned house before leaving the country. Alongside the lead actors, the film also features Annu Khandelwal, Saurabh Agarwal, Sabya Saachi, Satish Kalra, and Anand Mishra.

In a conversation with Hindustan Times, Dasgupta explained how the film was nearly lost forever due to damaged and missing archival material.

“Those days you didn't have digital backups, and there were two betas in which all these rushes were there. One beta got lost and I never found it, and the other one was full of fungus so it was unusable. So, I forgot about the film all this time,” he shares, until two weeks ago when while shifting houses he found an unlabelled VHS tape: “I thought it would probably be my wedding video and who would find a VHS player in today’s time to play that. So I was about to throw it, but then I felt that maybe, let me just check what is there, and out comes this film.”

He also revealed that the idea of releasing it on Irrfan Khan’s death anniversary came together quickly, as a way to honour the actor’s memory, despite the technical limitations of the recovered footage.

Vidya Balan had shot for the film in 1999–2000, shortly after her television work on Hum Paanch. Dasgupta mentioned that he discovered her not through television but through a commercial that left a lasting impression on him.

He also shared that Vidya responded positively when he reached out after the film’s recovery, expressing surprise and excitement about its resurfacing.

Even after its release, Dasgupta admits the film still feels incomplete to him, especially given the condition of the surviving footage. He continues to search for a better version of the lost material in hopes of restoring it more fully in the future.

He also noted that he had stayed in touch with Irrfan Khan after the film, and they had even spoken about working together again, though schedules eventually made that impossible.

Speaking to Hindustan Times, he said he remains struck by the continued affection audiences have for the late actor: the response has been overwhelming, and the love for Irrfan Khan, he says, still feels extraordinary.