Lunchbox director Ritesh Batra on making it to Variety’s list of the 'top 10 directors in the world to watch out for'
Sonil Dedhia (MID-DAY; December 23, 2016)

"I am gifted to be able to do what I love, which is, make films,” says an exhilarated Ritesh Batra, who has been listed on Variety’s list of world’s top 10 directors to watch out for for his English language-debut film, The Sense of an Ending. The list places him alongside the likes of Julia Ducournau (Raw) and Barry Jenkins (Moonlight).

"It feels great when you are honoured and appreciated for your work. I was thrilled when my name was announced; people around me were excited too. They are honouring everyone at the Palm Springs Film Festival in California where my film will also premiere (on January 3). But at the same time, I don’t want to be consumed by any of this, and continue doing my work," he adds.

Talking about collaborating with legendary litterateur Julian Barnes, on whose novel his film is based, Batra says, “The first thing that he told me was, ‘Go ahead and betray me.’ It was a blessing to work with him. He trusted us completely and came on the sets twice. He saw the film and sent me a letter saying he loved it.”

Despite being an adaptation, Batra promises elements of freshness in his film. “We didn’t want to make a movie that was exactly like the book. I have seen adaptations not working because they have been too faithful to the book. It was a painful yet a magical experience,” he says about the Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling-starrer.

The Lunchbox director’s debut film is creating ripples in the West before its official release
Subhash K Jha (DNA; December 18, 2016)

Ritesh Batra’s film The Sense Of An Ending based on Julian Barnes’ novel has been selected by Variety magazine among the 10 films and directors to watch out for in 2016. Clubbing Batra for this singular honour with some of the best works of the year — no Indian director has been thus honoured in recent times — Variety places Batra and his film alongside Julia Ducourno’s shocking horror film Raw and theatre’s veteran director William Oldroyd’s screen adaptation of Lady Macbeth.

The Sense Of An Ending will open the 28th Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 2, 2017. Ritesh is understandably pleased, but habitually calm about the honour. “One doesn’t know what the outcome will be when one sets off to make a film. The Sense Of An Ending was completed in June. Shooting with actors like Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling was very enriching.”

Batra got to work with the legendary litterateur Julian Barnes. Says Ritesh, “Barnes was on the project helping us all through. It is an interesting challenge to adapt the novel. We couldn’t just take the book and put it on screen.

We had to search for the centre of the novel and place it in the film. And since I was involved with the writing, I didn’t feel the brunt of the cultural shift from Mumbai in The Lunchbox to England in The Sense Of An Ending.”

Batra says the film moves quite a way away from the novel. “If you’ve read the novel it’s actually quite short. There were lots of unspoken feelings and emotions between the lines which we had to dig out. We had to amplify the emotions. It was an amazing experience to work on the development of the script with Julian Barnes.”