Irrfan Khan is no stranger to Hollywood. The Indian actor has played roles in acclaimed films such as “Life of Pi,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “A Mighty Heart.”
His new film “The Lunchbox,” an Indian-French-German co-production, won the Grand Rail d’Or at Critics’ Week at the 66th Cannes film festival and the North American movie rights were acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.
Director Ritesh Batra’s debut feature film is about a wrongly delivered lunchbox that connects a young Hindu housewife to a Catholic man played by Khan.
Khan, 46, told Reuters about his latest film and how he sees Indian cinema changing to become more international.
“It’s a sweet love story, it’s a feel-good film, it makes you feel nice but the narrative is very simple. The strength of the film is that it says so much without talking. It is the things which the characters are not saying that are the most powerful in the film. That’s the uniqueness of the film.”
Since most big studios are averse to making films like “The Lunchbox,” does the actor think think that collaboration with international studios is the way forward?
“It is. I think it’s a new thing which will erupt in the Indian market and I have been telling this to producers for many years — collaborate with other countries, collaborate with producers from other countries and we will have our international product. Somehow this has started happening and this will keep going on and this will help our directors and our producers to find new markets, to find new languages of cinema, to find an Indian universal language of cinema.”
Commenting on Indian cinema at Cannes, Khan says: “We still need to come up with strong films to really make our mark. Although people know about India, we still need to make films one after the other to be talked about as a filmmaking country. We make films for our audience, we are not making films for international audience.”
What is the general view of Indian filmmakers?
“Indian cinema has to come of age. They are still waiting. There are elements in Indian commercial cinema which are excellent, which are original, but we need to find a story telling language which is relatable to anybody, everybody. That’s the language ‘The Lunchbox’ could strike.”
With India celebrating 100 years of cinema this year, Khan says in five years the industry is going to change. “You will have great cinema coming up. The pattern of cinema is such that every 10-15 years it changes because of the generation of filmmakers, the generation of the audience. I believe cinema will evolve very drastically and very quickly.”
