NEW DELHI: Two Indian films being screened at the ongoing 61st Sydney Film Festival are on a common theme - lonely housewives in different eras who are forced to find interests elsewhere. 

Even as Ritesh Batra’s highly-lauded The Lunchbox is among the four Indian films being screened at Festival, the other film is Charulata, made by cine craftsman Satyajit Ray and being screened almost 50 years after it was last exhibited at the same festival.

This movie is one of Ray’s women-centric films that was well ahead of its times when made in 1964 with Madhabi Mukherjee in the lead. The film is based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore and set in the late nineteenth century and tells the tale of the lonely housewife whose busy husband has no time for her.

Coincidentally, The Lunchbox is also the story of a loney housewife and how she begins to correspond with someone through letters sent inside a lunchbox. 

The Festival which commenced on 4 June, will also show Pan Nalin’s Faith Connections and Richie Mehta’s Siddharth in different sections.

Richie Mehta’s film Siddharth is about the search by a father for his lost son despite his own poverty.

Pan Nalin’s documentary Faith Connections is primarily on the Kumbh Mela, which takes place every three years at selected places along India’s river banks and is attended by about 100 million people.