Ritesh Batra – Taking Indian Cinema To An International Level

Our film bodies are run by bureaucrats. But the audience has grown far more evolved than the establishment.

Hailing from a history of award-winning short films, big things were expected of Ritesh Batra, especially after his script for his first feature The Lunchboxwas selected for numerous screenwriting labs all across the world. Last week, the NRI had the pleasure to meet Ritesh at the London Film Festival to talk about the development of his film from concept to screen, and the controversy surrounding India’s decision not to select the film as the country’s submission for next year’s Oscars.

Where did the inspirations for the film come from?

The characters of the film were percolating in me for so long. I really took my time to write it. I am kind of a foodie. Everything comes from what you’ve seen in the world and absorbed and assimilated. It’s hard to pin down specific inspirations for the love story. You get to a point in writing the script where the characters start talking to you. The film starts telling you what it wants to be.

How did The Lunchbox get from script to screen?

In 2007, I tried to make a documentary about the Dabbawaalas (the guys who delivery ‘dabba’ lunchboxes to city workers, as portrayed in the film). I hung around with them for a couple of days and became friends with them, and then they began telling me these gems of stories. Then I started writing the script for The Lunchbox from these, and ended up binning the documentary.

I kept rewriting and rewriting the script but I never felt good with what I had on the page until 2011. The producers and actors then came on board, and what followed was the usual kind of journey a script takes.

Read the rest of the interview at The-NRI.com.

About technicallybollywood

A London-based Scriptwriter looking to develop projects that share the depth of British films with the ambition of Hollywood and the heart of Bollywood.

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