At the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, India also made its presence with films like Photograph, Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon and the seven-part series Delhi Crime Story.
Photograph, written and directed by The Lunchbox helmer Ritesh Batra, had its world premiere at the festival.
International publications have hailed the movie as a quiet and effective romance. The Hollywood Reporter called it ‘a quiet charmer.’
The film has received positive reviews mostly, with The Hollywood Reporter’s Caryn James writing, “No one should head into a Batra film expecting fireworks, but for anyone who appreciates his understated style, Photograph is a satisfying, unswoony romance.” According to Fionnuala Hallugan of Screen Daily, “Photograph will find its following with hopeless romantics, whether that be on the big screen or small.”
On the other hand, Variety called Photograph a ‘nice’ film and wrote, “Six years after the international crossover success of The Lunchbox, along comes Photograph to prove, whatever Thomas Wolfe may think, that you can go home again. Writer-director Ritesh Batra’s first Indian film since his debut feature has the same quiet streak of wistful sentimentality that made The Lunchbox so globally beloved — and, for that matter, the same softly-softly humanity found in his two subsequent English-language efforts, The Sense of an Ending and Our Souls at Night. Whether roaming the streets of Mumbai or the plains of Colorado, Batra’s filmmaking has remained markedly consistent in tone and texture: You’d be hard pressed to find anyone making nicer films in world cinema right now.”
The film stage shared, “Batra is clearly a filmmaker keyed into these simple pleasures of life and invites us to luxuriate in them throughout Photograph”.
The award-winning director’s next film will have its European Premiere at the Berlin Film Festival running from Feb 7th through the 17th.
After the much acclaimed ‘Lunchbox’, Ritesh Batra is all set to present ‘Photograph’ which is set in Dharavi, Mumbai.
The film will mark Ritesh Batra’s second collaboration with the talented Nawazuddin Siddiqui and first collaboration with Sanya Malhotra who is currently riding high on the success of her latest outing ‘Badhaai Ho’.
