| Ritesh Batra Quick Info | |
|---|---|
| Height | 5 ft 9 in |
| Weight | 76 kg |
| Date of Birth | June 12, 1979 |
| Zodiac Sign | Gemini |
| Spouse | Claudia Muñoz |
Ritesh Batra is an Indian film director and screenwriter who is best known for directing the 2013 epistolary romance film titled The Lunchbox. The film was screened at the ‘International Critics’ Week’ at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and won the Critics Week Viewers Choice Award aka the Grand Rail d’Or. The much-adored film broke many records at the box office and received multiple awards across the globe. It was the highest-grossing foreign film in North America, Europe, and Australia, in 2014. It was also nominated for a BAFTA Award in 2015 in the category of ‘Film Not in the English Language’. Ritesh’s other feature films include The Sense of an Ending (2017), Our Souls at Night (2017), and Photograph (2019). He has also directed the short films The Morning Ritual (2008), Gareeb Nawaz’s Taxi (2010), Café Regular Cairo (2011), and Masterchef (2013).
Born Name
Ritesh Batra
Nick Name
Ritesh
Sun Sign
Gemini
Born Place
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
Residence
He splits his time between Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, and New York City, New York, United States.
Nationality
Education
Ritesh had attended the Arya Vidya Mandir (AVM) High School in his hometown of Mumbai. After his high school graduation, he moved to the United States to pursue higher education. There, he joined Drake University, a private university in Des Moines, Iowa. He had graduated from there with a degree in economics.
About 3 years after this, to pursue his childhood dream of filmmaking, he enrolled himself in the Tisch School Of The Arts, the performing, cinematic, and media arts school of New York University, a private research university in New York City. He had, however, dropped out a few months later.
Occupation
Film Director, Screenwriter
Family
- Father – Joginder Batra (Former Member of the Merchant Navy of India)
- Mother – Manju Kapoor Batra
- Siblings – Radhika Batra Shah (Older Sister) (Owner of a Tea Business)
Build
Average
Height
5 ft 9 in or 175 cm
Weight
76 kg or 167.5 lbs
Girlfriend / Spouse
Ritesh has dated –
- Claudia Muñoz (2009-Present) – Ritesh married a Mexican woman named Claudia Muñoz in 2009. They had met for the first time in a bar while he was studying in the United States. They have a daughter together named Aisha Batra (b. 2012).
Race / Ethnicity
Asian (Indian)
Hair Color
Black
Eye Color
Dark Brown
Sexual Orientation
Straight
Distinctive Features
- Mildly stocky frame
- Semi-bald head
- Affable smile
- Sports a thick beard
Ritesh Batra Facts
- Ritesh, after graduating from Drake University, had worked as a consultant at Deloitte, a multinational professional services network with offices in more than 150 countries and territories around the world, for about 3 years.
- He started his filmmaking career by writing and directing shorts. His 2011 Arab language short film titled Café Regular Cairo was screened at more than 40 international film festivals and had won several awards including the ‘Critics’ Prize for Best Film’ at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and the ‘Best Film’ award at German Star of India.
- In 2011, he returned to India to make a documentary on the extremely efficient and globally acclaimed lunchbox delivery system in Mumbai. The research he did for this project eventually led to the conceptualization of his debut feature film titled The Lunchbox (2013).
- In 2014, he founded a film production company called PoeticLicense Motion Pictures.
Featured Image by Ritesh Batra / Instagram
