The Chronicler of Dreams

DREAMS INFORM EVERYTHING THAT PAYAL KAPADIA DOES, WHETHER IT'S HER STORIES, HER CHARACTERS OR HER FILMMAKING EVEN IF THEY'RE ALL ANCHORED IN STARK REALITY

- Suhani Singh

Seated in One World Centre, a 20-storeyed glass monolith darting out of Lower Parel's busy skyline in Mumbai, filmmaker Payal Kapadia finds herself in a flux, a lot like the characters in her films. It isn't lost on the 38-year-old Mumbai-born and based filmmaker that she's on a piece of reclaimed mill land that one of her characters in All We Imagine as Light eventually loses her home to. "I am not against progress and I don't want to hold on to the past in any way, but it is the people who once lived or worked here who can no longer access this space," she says. "The loss of public space is something that concerns me. It's the first thing that goes away when a city develops."

Kapadia's in the midst of a promotional blitz-one that's been on for nearly five months now-since All We Imagine...won the Grand Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival in May, making her the first Indian filmmaker to win the second biggest prize at the prestigious international film festival. In the interim, she has been to the United States for the first time in her life, where the film screened at the Telluride Film Festival; attended the Time100 NEXT gala; and walked through the Criterion video library, a pipe dream for any independent filmmaker. Thanks to Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media, which acquired its distribution rights in India, the independent film will hit cinemas on November 22. "I am pleasantly surprised with everything that's come its [the film's way," she says. "In filmmaking... I wish I could say there was some guarantee, but there is never any. It could have gone to some other festival where it wouldn't have got the attention. Committees are of people and they are unpredictable."