Homebound — which chronicles the friendship and struggles of Chandan (Jethwa), a Dalit, and Shoaib (Khatter), a Muslim, who are determined to beat the odds to lead a better life — had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival 2025 under the Un Certain Regard section. Directed and co-written by Neeraj Ghaywan, it is a rare mainstream film which examines the fallout of the mass migration across the country triggered by the Covid lockdown in 2020.

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Though based on an article by Basharat Peer, published in The New York Times in July 2020, Ghaywan devoted nearly three years to writing Homebound. “Writing its script took much longer than shooting the film. Adapting Basharat Peer’s article (as a script) was a big task. There was a great story there. Though what I took from that story was the germ of an idea, the whole world had to be created for the movie,” says Ghaywan about the film that was selected as the second runner-up in the International People’s Choice Award of the just-concluded Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

Speaking to The Indian Express, he says worldwide issues related to “marginalised identities are always broken down in statistics, especially in urban India”, since it is easier to talk about them in numbers. “There is this slightly condescending gaze towards it. We often say that these many migrants, or these many Dalits have been faced with atrocities,” he says.

To subvert this, as well as to humanise this section of people, Neeraj Ghaywan picks two characters drawn from these statistics and takes a deep dive into their worlds. “The idea was to go to their homes. See what they eat, what they feel, what they aspire for, how do they rebuild their life after setbacks and what makes them leave their homes and travel all the way to the cities,” says Ghaywan.

The film also features a cameo by actor Janhvi Kapoor, as a college student and an Ambedkarite.

As Ghaywan, who made his directorial debut with Masaan in 2015, worked on the script for Homebound, it also became “a personal quest” for him. “To make the film work, I knew I had to personalise the story. So, I reflected on my childhood, teenage years when I tried to pass off as a Shavarna, and my Dalit but patriarchal household. But above all these experiences, the film is about this lovely friendship (between Chandan and Shoaib). Through that, we can talk about the heart of our country,” he says.

Keen to initiate a dialogue through his films, instead of “pointing fingers at anyone”, Ghaywan, who worked on the screenplay with Varun Grover and Shreedhar Dubey, says: “I am here to engage, even with my adversary. I want to exercise my empathy and have a conversation, even with people who are disagreeing with me.”

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Even during the casting process, “being empathetic” played a key role in selection of actors, he says. He was looking for actors who would believe that their characters represented something bigger than just a role, or a film. The actors went through an intensive preparation process — from spending time with each other and bonding, to reading Dr B R Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, and visiting rural areas.

Although the film talks about caste and religious biases in no uncertain terms, the story is not devoid of hope. “There is so much pathos in our world, especially the world that we are inhabiting right now. So, we should have some hope and believe that things could happen differently…I saw the beauty in that,” says Ghaywan.