Vishal Jethwa and Ishaan Khatar still from ‘Homebound’. Photo Credit: Religion Productions
Neeraj Gaywan’s new film HomeboundWhich premiered in the United Nations’s fixed ties segment at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, a poignant real -life story tells her roots for the first time in the story. new York Times Odd during India’s Kovid -19 lockdown. The film, which attracted a permanent ovation at its premiere, was inspired by the 2020 essay of journalist Bashrat Peer, but did not take any award at home. Take the nectar (Now retail A friendship, an epidemic and a death next to the highway,
This essay remembers the visit of two young migrant workers of Mohammad Cyub and Amrit Kumar, the friends of Deori Village in Uttar Pradesh. One Muslim, the other Dalit, the pair had gone to Surat in Gujarat, working in various factories and sharing a rented room. When India entered a strict lockdown in March 2020, the factory closed, and their savings began to decrease. Public transport was suspended and no access to train tickets, they eventually boarded a crowded truck for the house. During the journey, Amrit became seriously ill.
Due to fear of infection, fellow passengers left him on the roadside. However, Ciab refused to leave his friend behind. Rural trapped in Madhya Pradesh, he was eventually admitted to a local hospital with the help of a local politician. Amrit died shortly after, not from Kovid -19, but by dehydration. Ciab, who conducted a negative test for the virus, took his friend’s body back to his village.
The story attracted Ghaywan’s attention during the epidemic. A recommendation by friend and producer Somen Mishra at Dharma Productions inspired him to article. What Gaywan moved, was a tender, non-political friendship between two youths of historically oppressed communities, navigating both a humanitarian crisis and the weight of social division.
While Dharma Productions interacted with rights new York Times – Since Peer was no longer working there and hence he did not get any royalty – Ghaywan started working on a script, which made the hero’s backstory fiction while being loyal to the journey described in the article.
As a result HomeboundChandan Kumar and Mohammad Shoaib Ali are the characters based on Vishal Jethwa and Ishaan Khat, based on Amrit and Sayub. His shared aspiration to join the state police service and to avoid the boundaries imposed by caste and religion makes the emotional foundation of the film.
Vishal Jethwa and Ishaan Khatar still from ‘Homebound’. Photo Credit: Religion Productions
Martin Scorses, who had previously supported the restoration of Indian classics, but once came on board as an executive manufacturer after a contemporary Hindi-language production, French manufacturer Melita Torskan du Plantar was introduced to the project. Schoers’ said in a statement, “Neeraj has made a beautifully prepared film which is an important contribution to Indian cinema.”
For Ghaywan, who grew up in a Dalit family, the subjects of the film are personal. He said, “I am the only approved person in the community who is in front of the camera in all history of Hindi cinema,” he said. His inspiration for the project was simple: “What if we take out a person out of that figure and see what happened in his life?”
Despite disappearing from an award, Homebound Got a strong significant response, and its presence in the ear will probably translate to a later possible award season dispute, Aa La Payal Kapadia We all imagine as light,
Published – May 24, 2025 11:27 AM IST
