Guneet Monga struggled to get a room for Irrfan Khan at Cannes during 'The Lunchbox'

Guneet Monga, A still from The Lunchbox

Academy Award-winning producer Guneet Monga, who bankrolled the 2013 drama ‘The Lunchbox' starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur, sat down for a chat on Mid-day's podcast series The Bombay Film Story and asserted that the film would have won an Oscar. For those unversed, in 2013, ‘The Good Road', a Gujarati film was India's official entry for the Academy Awards. That being said, ‘The Lunchbox' did receive a BAFTA nomination in 2015.

How ‘The Lunchbox' missed an Oscar nomination

Guneet Monga shared, "The whole world pointed that out. Lunchbox would have won, hands down. Even if I'm saying a bigger statement, would have been nominated. And I hear it till date. In rooms that I enter, they're like, 'You missed an Oscar'. It had Sony Picture Classics, and we missed that bus."

Guneet further shared that half of the money for ‘The Lunchbox' came from France. "Only 50 percent of the budget needed to be recouped in equity. The other half was soft, raised from France. Under the co-production treaty, taxpayer's money, they were signed. This treaty was signed in 1985. We were the first one to use it in 2011."

Irrfan Khan couldn't get a room at Cannes till the last minute

‘The Lunchbox' won the Critics' Week Viewers Choice Award also known as Grand Rail d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Guneet said, "I showed ‘The Lunchbox' to everybody in town and nobody wanted to buy it. We had no money to go to Cannes and do the premiere. I remember to the last minute, I didn't have a room for Irrfan (Khan), sir. (She eventually got him a room that would have been Tilda Swinton's.)"

How Karan Johar helped market ‘The Lunchbox'

Karan Johar was at Cannes celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. Guneet recalls telling Karan how the film is a love story and him being the epitome of it should help her release it in India.

"He gave me his phone number. Cut to, we did win it at Cannes. We came back. We showed him the film. He loved it and he was like, he came out with a tear in his eye and he was like, can you fall in love with somebody who's, who you've never met? So he gave it that marketing line and then became the synopsis and the marketing line globally for the film and he distributed it," said Guneet.

About ‘The Lunchbox'

In this poignant romantic drama, Irrfan Khan plays the role of Saajan Fernandes, a lonely office worker who strikes up an unexpected friendship with a woman, played by Nimrat Kaur, through a lunchbox mix-up. His nuanced portrayal captures the character's loneliness, longing, and eventual emotional awakening, earning widespread critical acclaim.