Lunchbox, which screened at this year’s festival (QFT, Monday 31st March) went down a treat with the Belfast audience taking home the Festival’s much coveted Audience award.
The film has seen huge acclaim worldwide winning the Audience Choice Award at the Cannes Film Festival Critics week, the Audience Choice Award at the World Cinema Film Festival in Amsterdam and Ritesh Batra took best Director at the Odessa International Film Festival.
The film tells the story of a mistaken delivery in Mumbai’s famously efficient lunchbox delivery system that connects a young housewife to an old man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. Gradually, this fantasy threatens to overwhelm their reality.
India’s hottest indie film of the year is a feel-good love story with global appeal. Award-winning filmmaker Ritesh Batra’s debut feature is based on the legend of Mumbai’s Lunchbox delivery service, which it is said never goes wrong. Batra deftly unfolds a wonderfully observed range of subtle emotions, supported by a lightly paced and often humorous script. India’s greatest character actors Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi) and Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Gangs of Wasseypur), with emerging star Nimrat Kaur, build on the flawed personalities of their characters to deliver unforgettable performances.
The Lunchbox is an exquisite, bittersweet ode to love and longing from India, that makes your heart sing. A debut feature that screened at the Cannes Film Festival, it won the Grand Rail d’Or Award in the International Critics’ Week section.