RITESH BATRA | INDIA, GERMANY, FRANCE, USA | 2013 | 104' | HINDI, ENGLISH | ENGLISH SUBTITLES
In 2011, World Cinema Amsterdam's focus was on independent cinema from India, a country that produces more than Bollywood entertainment. Debuting director Ritesh Batra proves this once again with his indie film The Lunchbox, a wonderful feel-good story about small pleasures that can give happiness.
How does a working person in Mumbai's gigantic metropolis get their lunch? The people of Mumbai have devised a very clever system: every day thousands of delivery men swarm out over the city to carry lunch boxes from kitchens to offices. In this fine-meshed system a lunch box is rarely wrongly delivered. But that is exactly what happens in The Lunchbox.
Single Sajaan (Irrfan Khan) has worked at the same office for 35 years. Life has not been very kind to him. Ila (Nimrat Kaur) lives on the other side of the city, with a husband who barely notices her. Her neighbour advises her to make extra tasty lunches for her husband, which she does, because who knows... But the lunchbox is wrongly delivered and ends up in Sajaan's hands. When Ila discovers the mistake, she leaves a note in the next lunchbox. It marks the beginning of a long lunchbox notes exchange, in which both correspondents pour their hearts out. Gradually they develop feelings for each other.
RIALTO: WED 7 AUG 20.30 (official opening movie) SOLD OUT
WED 7 AUG 21.15
FRI 9 AUG 22.00
DE BALIE: SAT 17 AUG 17.30 
