Entertainment
British project by-product of ‘The Lunchbox’ success: Director Ritesh Batra
New Delhi: Ritesh Batra is in the process of waving his cinematic wand to bring the world of Julian Barnes’ novel “The Sense of an Ending” to life for a British film in which he is also working with Oscar-winning actor Jim Broadbent. The director points out that fame of “The Lunchbox” opened the doors to the West for him.
“The movie working everywhere was a real gift to me. And the by-product of that is this offer of directing a British project in English language,” Batra told IANS over phone from Mumbai.
Batra’s ticket to global acclaim was the success of “The Lunchbox”, starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur. His debut feature film narrated a simple tale of a love-lorn wife and a lonely man and how letters through a ‘lunchbox’ bind them.
The film went globetrotting with its taste and managed to satiate film enthusiasts across the world with its flavours. The 2013 film was appreciated at several international film extravaganzas like Cannes, Zurich, London and Toronto and British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards.
But for now, the foreign project is what occupies Batra’s mind who has helmed several short films like “Gareeb Nawaz’s Taxi” and “The Masterchef.”
Sharing insight about the crossover project, Batra, who is currently shooting the film in Britain, said that the venture will have its own world infused with the book’s plot at its periphery.
“The film is an adaptation of the 2011 novel that I love. I think adaptations are always difficult. Movies have to exist as compliment to the book. You cannot make a film entirely on a book. So, the exciting thing of this project is that it conveys the essence of the novel, but it also has its own thing going on,” said Batra.
The novel follows life of a retired man and how it changes drastically after he receives an unexpected letter from a lawyer. The book has embedded several sub-plots — confrontation with past and staring at the unfulfilling present marred by the suicide of the man’s childhood best friend.
Batra is directing Broadbent for the film.
Appreciating his body of work, he lists out his favourite which includes movies like “Another Year”, “Topsy Turvy” and “Iris”.
Quiz him about chance of any Indian actor finding a place in the foreign project, Batra says “it is hard to answer” but “there is a possibility.”
To be shot in Britain, specifically London, the film marks the first screenplay by Nick Payne. FilmNation Entertainment holds worldwide rights and will co-finance the project with BBC Films. Origin Pictures’ David Thompson and Ed Rubin are producers of the movie.
Batra notes that the deal breaker for him was the “love for the script and team”.
“It is an important piece of British literature. I loved the script and the team behind it. So it is for the love of the story and the characters that I picked the project. I believe people are as important as the content,” he said.
There has always been hue and cry over the difference in the working style of India and foreign. But Batra points out that the only difference for him is that “Mumbai is where home is.”
“I think film crews function in the same way all over the world,” he said.
Batra is not only leaving imprints in showbiz, but has also taken up the responsibility to revive a lost tradition – Mumbai’s Irani cafes.
The director said the initiative will continue as he will be coming back and forth from Britain.
International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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