Ritesh Batra has started principal photography on Long Years Ago, a comedy-drama that brings Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan back onto the same screen for the first time since their debut, Parineeta. The film, set in 1991 and shooting in Mumbai, also stars French actor Melanie Laurent.
The reunion at the centre
For Hindi cinema followers, the Saif-Vidya pairing is the immediate headline. Parineeta introduced both actors in lead roles and has remained a reference point for their screen chemistry. Now Batra, who became internationally known with The Lunchbox, is placing that history inside a family story built on silence.
The makers describe the film as the story of “a family that has gone too long without saying the things that matter, and what happens when they’re finally forced to find the words.” That is familiar ground for Batra, whose work has repeatedly returned to private emotional stakes and restraint.
What the production tells us
Batra made his name with The Lunchbox, starring Irrfan Khan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, before directing international projects such as The Sense of an Ending and Our Souls at Night, the latter with Robert Redford and Jane Fonda. Long Years Ago returns him to a Mumbai-set Hindi film, now with a production stack that signals cross-border intent: Adeel Ahmed and Batra’s Poetic License, Jio Studios and Good Chaos.
Laurent, known for Inglourious Basterds and Now You See Me, said she met Batra at the Marrakech Film Festival fifteen years ago and shared a dream to work with him in Mumbai. Her presence is a reminder that Batra’s brand of intimate storytelling has travel value, not just local appeal.
The facts on record so far:
- Principal photography is under way in Mumbai.
- The story is set in 1991 and centres on a family confronting things left unsaid.
- Saif and Vidya reunite after Parineeta; Laurent completes the announced principal cast.
- Producers are Poetic License, Jio Studios and Good Chaos; Jyoti Deshpande produces for Jio Studios.
- No release date has been announced.
Why it matters now
Hindi cinema has long used the family as a pressure cooker: a unit that knows too much about its members and says too little. Batra’s return to that territory, with a cast chosen for both local recall and international recognition, is a test of whether a quiet domestic story can still stand out in a marketplace that often reaches for scale and spectacle.
The pitch itself is a classic arrangement: a period setting, a family with unsaid things, and two leads whose shared history already gives the film its memory. Saif pointed to Batra’s gift for deeply personal stories that resonate across cultures; Vidya said she had admired Batra’s work since The Lunchbox and that the Saif reunion made the project even more special.
For audiences, the practical step is simple: revisit The Lunchbox and Parineeta before release details arrive. For the industry, the signal is in the work itself; principal photography has begun, and the release conversation can follow.
Source: The Times of India
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