Ritesh Batra’s Photograph heads to Berlin International Film Festival

Filmmaker Ritesh Batra’s next film, Photograph (2019), will have its European premiere at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival. The film, starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sanya Malhotra, is having its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on 27 January 2019.

The Berlin International Film Festival announced the additional titles selection in the competition and Special Gala sections yesterday. The elated filmmaker shared the news online on Twitter.

Twelve films, both features and documentaries, have been selected for the Special Gala section. Photograph is the second Indian film chosen after Zoya Akhtar’s Gully Boy (2019) which is making its world premiere in Berlin.

Photograph, written and directed by Batra, tells the story of a Mumbai street photographer, Rafi (Siddiqui), who asks a shy stranger Miloni (Malhotra) to pose as his fiancée to make his visiting grandmother happy.

The film marks Batra’s return to India. His previous two films, The Sense of an Ending (2017) and Our Souls at Night (2017) were both international productions. The writer-director received global acclaim for his first film The Lunchbox (2013) starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur. Siddiqui also had a small role in the film.

The Berlin International Film Festival will be held from 7 February to 17 February.