The Variety Streaming Room, bathed in soft amber light and humming with quiet anticipation, became a modest stage for a story about storytelling. When Neeraj Ghaywan stepped up, his voice carried the weight of a journey that began in cramped rehearsal spaces and lingered in the echo of distant corridors. He spoke of a script that first took shape in the margins of a notebook, a narrative born from the restless pulse of a city that never quite lets its inhabitants settle. Ghaywan described the moment the film found its champion in Martin Scorsese, a meeting that felt less like a transaction and more like a passing of a torch. The legendary director's involvement, he said, was less about brand and more about a shared belief that cinema could reach beyond borders, that a tale rooted in Indian soil could speak to universal longing. He recounted the challenges of weaving together a cast that straddled experience and raw talent, of coaxing performances that felt both intimate and expansive. The production, he explained, unfolded in a rhythm that mirrored the film's own themes-moments of stillness punctuated by sudden bursts of motion, a dance between confinement and the yearning for freedom. As the conversation drifted toward the film's reception, Ghaywan reflected on the quiet thrill of hearing his work mentioned among the world's most celebrated storytellers. He emphasized that the true reward lay not in accolades but in the quiet acknowledgment that a story born in a modest studio could reverberate across continents. The room listened, the air thick with the promise that "Homebound" would continue to travel, carrying with it the hopes of a generation eager to be seen, heard, and understood.