Laurels continue to pour in for THE LUNCHBOX. The film has been nominated in the Film Not in the English Language category of the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) 2015.
Debutant director Ritesh Batra is naturally jubilant. “It’s an incredible honour for me and my team. I am in London right now, and I just heard about it, and we are honoured to be nominated alongside the finest films of the year. It’s a great way to start the New Year!”
Nominations for the awards, organised annually by British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), were announced in London on Friday.
THE LUNCHBOX, starring Nimrat Kaur and Irrfan Khan, will compete with Polish-Danish drama film IDA, Russian drama LEVIATHAN, Brazilian-British adventure thriller TRASH, and Belgian drama TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT.
This is indeed good news for every film lover who was moved by the unique love story between a lonely wife and a lonely man. The story revolves around Ila, a young middle class Mumbai housewife, essayed by Nimrat Kaur, trying to win back her husband’s affections through his stomach and how a rare misplaced delivery in Mumbai’s famously efficient ‘dabbawala’ system of lunchboxes, from homes to offices, connects her to an old widower, played by Irrfan Khan, through notes in the lunch box.
Incidentally, while THE LUNCHBOX released in India in 2013, it reached British screens only in 2014.
Jointly produced by multiple studios like DAR Motion Pictures, UTV Motion Pictures, Dharma Productions, Sikhya Entertainment, National Film Development Corporation (India), ROH Films (Germany), ASAP Films (France), and the Cine Mosaic (US), the film has done its round of international film festivals, including those in Cannes, Zurich, London and Toronto. Backed by the likes of Anurag Kashyap, Karan Johar, Guneet Monga and Danis Tanovic, THE LUNCHBOX went on to become one of the highest grossing foreign films at the US box office.
