Ritesh Batra's The Lunchbox to open Dharamshala Film Festival

After moving around the film festival circuit, filmmaker Ritesh Batra's romantic film The Lunchbox will be the opening film at the Dharamshala International Film Festival 2013 on 24 October (2013). The film starring Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui will be presented by producer Guneet Monga. The festival will screen about 30 films ranging from fiction, documentaries and short films. The protagonists of the film are a man (Irrfan Khan) who's been grieving since his wife died and a woman (Nimrit Kaur) who wants to seek her husband’s attention to rekindle their love and hopes to cook her way through her husband's heart. But the dabba with the awesomely delicious food she had prepared for her husband gets delivered to Mr. Fernandez (Irrfan) instead by a rare mistake of the very famous dabbawalas. Realizing the mistake of the delivery, she writes a note to Fernandez about it and then in a series of compelling and sincere notes that they exchange through the dabba the movie unfolds a beautiful episode in their life. This year the four day festival, that also has a special focus on Indian documentaries with strong social concerns, will screen films like Nishtha Jain's Gulabi Gang, Amit Virmani's Menstrual Man and Anand Patwardhan's Jai Bhim Comrade. Other films to be screened are Filmistaan by debutante director Nitin Kakkar, La Voz De Los Silenciados by Australian Maximon Monihan, The Rocket by American Sylvia Wilczynski, Crossing Bridges by debutante Arunachali director Sange Dorjee Tahongdok, With You Without You by Sri Lankan Prasanna Vithanage and The Strange Little Cat by Ramon Zurcher. The Lunchbox, that was earlier screened at International Critics' Week at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, later won the Critics Week Viewers Choice Award also known as Grand Rail d'Or. It was also shown at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. The Dharamshala International Film Festival will end on 27 October.