Keswick Film Festival

Synopsis

For the many of us who came to see 'The Lunchbox' here in 2014, 'Photograph' will be your first Christmas present this year; the latest from director Ritesh Batra treads a similar path. Instead of a misrouted lunchbox, it all starts for our potential lovers here with a photograph.

Rafi scrapes a living taking photos of tourists "in front of Mumbai's Gateway monument. He sells his services to tourists by promising that 'years from now, when you look at the photograph you will feel the sun on your face, the wind on your hair, and you will hear those voices again.' If they do not have a picture, he tells them, 'it will be all gone.'" - Nell Minow, Roger Ebert.com. One of these tourists is Miloni, a student studying accountancy, but wanting to be an actress.

When Rafi learns that his grandmother is refusing to take any medicine until he finds a potential wife, what could he possibly do? Naturally, he sends her the picture he has taken of Miloni. What could possibly go wrong? You guessed it: grandmother wants to meet Miloni. There follows a string of meetings where Rafi and Miloni pretend to be dating...but will it ever become more than pretence? You probably guessed that too...

"This is a film that ends with the two characters walking out of a movie theatre, with one of them saying, 'The stories are all the same in movies these days.' It may be that the stories in movies are all the same. But it can be lovely when a movie like this one finds a different way to tell them" - Minow again.