Scorsese-backed Indian film packs emotional punch at Cannes

On paper Neeraj Ghaywan's “Homebound” — which premiered on Wednesday at the Cannes film festival — looks like a typical Bollywood tearjerker. Two best friends who grew up together in a poor village leave to take on the world, their friendship and mettle tested at every turn. But this is no average buddy movie.

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The moving epic set in northern India around pandemic lockdowns is so much more than that because one of the boys is a Muslim and the other a low-caste Hindu. Their unbreakable bond, forged in adversity, is the beating heart of the film, which so moved Hollywood legend Martin Scorsese that he got on board to help bring it to the world. There are millions of such friendships which cross religious and caste divides in India, its director said, “but it has never been shown" before on the big screen.

“Only a handful of films have ever featured Dalit (lower caste) stories and most of those were made by people from the privileged castes,” Ghaywan said. Ghaywan is that very rare beast in Bollywood — a Dalit director from the lowest rung in the rigid Hindu caste system. He believes he is the “first acknowledged Dalit behind a camera in the history of Hindi cinema. That's a stunning disparity,” he said.