Hollywood star Joseph Gordon-Levitt is all set to visit India next weekend. The actor will be one of the key speakers at the IFP, set to take place on October 12 and 13 this year. The announcement had everyone buzzing with excitement and has scaled up the expectations from the festival this year. In an exclusive chat with News18 Showsha, IFP founder Ritam Bhatnagar revealed that they got on a call with Joseph and brought him on board only three weeks ago.
He added that while they had reached out to him last year, things did not fall in place. However, this time around, they managed to convince him. “We reached out to Joseph last year as well. We were very bullish about it because Gaurav (Dave, Festival Producer) is a huge fan of Joseph. He believes that Joseph is so underrated and he has done such brilliant, variety of things as a child, teenage and an evolved actor. Joseph is building a parallel community of creative people, which is called Hit Record. While we reached out to him, we informed him that what he is doing with Hit Record is exactly that IFP is trying to build. We are building one giant community of people. Though festival is an enabler, round the year we work closely with the community. We have almost 9 lakh people from 45 countries in the community,” Ritam shared with News18 Showsha exclusively.
“I think it kind of stuck with him that the festival is similar to what he is trying to build in the US. So I think that was for us the bigger thing. I am a Hit Record fanboy and Gaurav is a fan of Joseph,” he added.
Ritam and Gaurav had been in touch with Joseph for a month now. They reached out to him via email. They emailed him at 9:30 PM one September night and within 15 minutes he agreed to attend the event. At 2 AM, Joseph requested the team to get on a call to discuss his participation.
“Joseph said let’s get on a call. Suddenly at 2 o clock, we got a mail about the call. I called up Gaurav and told him about the mail. He was almost half-asleep. He confessed he wasn’t in a presentable state for the call but we went on the call, explained what we were trying to do and he was more than happy to participate,” Ritam recalled.
The founder also revealed Joseph’s request from the festival organisers. “Joseph said, ‘I wanted to come to India and this festival looks like a perfect place for me to come in. I want to interact with a lot of young people. So whatever way you are getting to do the festival, make sure that I get to interact with as many young creators as possible.’ So that’s how it unfolded for us,” he shared.
Over the years, the festival has had its share of international attendees. However, they hosted their sessions virtually. Ritam said that they placed a condition in their email when they reached out to Joseph. “I kind of pushed Joseph. I said, ‘See, only reply to this email if you are willing to travel to Mumbai on the said dates. Because neither the dates can change, neither the reality that it’s an on-ground event can change. The moment he replied, we thought to ourselves ‘What just happened!'” he said with a smile.
While Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s session will be one of the highlights this year, Ritam also shared a few other sessions that might excite attendees, especially those who are interested in cinema and filmmaking. “There is a session happening on iconic ads made over the years. We’ve got Prasoon Pandey, Ram Madhvani and Shakun Batra talking about every iconic ad made in India from the late 70s up until now. Another session we are hosting is ‘Journey of a Joke.’ It is a conversation between actor Saurabh Shukla and comedian Abish Mathew. Both of them have not met each other despite being in the comedy space. It will be an interesting session. These two sessions are from Day 1,” he shared.
Mentioning the sessions from Day 2 that he feels entertainment geeks would love, Ritam said, “We have Unfiltered by Samdish (hosted by social media journalist Samdish Bhatia), in which he will be talking to Shoojit Sircar.” The festival also has a scene breakdown from the film Court.
He also mentioned that climate activist Sonam Wangchuck’s session is something that people can look forward to. He also mentioned that Sand of Storm writer Geetanjali Shree, who is also a Booker Prize Winner, is also hosting a session. He also said that a session with writer and Jaipur Literature Festival producer William Dalrymple is part of the line up this year.
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