By Seekriti Saha
National film awards winner and Masaan director,Neeraj Ghayan’s movie Homebound received the second runner up-spot in the International People’s Choice Awards category in Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2025.
Homebound stars Ishan Khattar,Vishal Jethwa and Jhanvi Kapoor. It is executive produced by the legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese under the banner of Dharma Productions.
The film is based on the journalist Basharat Peer’s New York Times essay Taking Amrit Home.Chandan and Shoaib belonging to the Dalit and Muslim community consecutively are highly motivated to crack one of the police jobs available.They are stimulated by the thought that the uniform of a cop would help them climb the ladder in society.But unfortunately the results of the exams are not released,leave them pondering over different sources of income-whether to join the paid labour work of their village or join some migrant jobs in Dubai or finish their education at the university.Shoaib’s father is disabled hence the whole bread-learning responsibility of has been shifted,Chandan is yearning to build an abode for his parents.They both suffer ignominy due to class and caste struggle that lies vehemently in the society. The film received an ovation in the Cannes film festival.
“I have seen Neeraj ‘s first film Masaan in 2015 and loved it, so when Melita Touscan du Plantier sent me the project of his second film, I was curious.I loved the story,the culture, and was willing to help,”Scorsese said.
The Braj language movie Vimukt (In Search of the Sky) is a movie of debutant director Jitank Singh Gurjar. It has won the NETPAC Award at TIFF 2025.The other movie which went to TIFF this year is Anurag Kashyap’ Bandar and Baayan a series by Bikas Ranjan Mishra was also screened this year.