Payal Kapadia

The Fresh New International Voice Of Indian Cinema

- Ananya Ghosh

The All We Imagine as Light director, who became the first Indian woman filmmaker to win the Grand Prix at Cannes this year, talks about her journey to the spotlight and what lies beyond

The opening film of MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024 was the debut feature of Payal Kapadia, an FTII (Film and Television Institute of India) graduate. It is essentially a story of three women who have migrated from small villages to Mumbai in search of a livelihood-two are roommates who also work together in a city hospital, Prabha (Kani Kusruti) is the head nurse while Anu (Divya Prabha) is a recent recruit. The third member of the trio is the cook at their hospital, Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam). The three women represent three different generations and mindsets. Much like Vittorio De Sica, the 38-year-old neorealist gives the stark social commentary a lyrical upgrade. Kapadia weaves poetry out of the prosaic, creates ballads out of the banal, and imbues everyday spaces with a dreamlike quality.

It is a female buddy film. It is a road movie. It is an ode to a city. It is a contemporary fable. It is a coming-of-age story. It is a take on urban loneliness. It is a celebration of the independent working woman. It is All We Imagine As Light-the first Indian film to play in competition at Cannes in 30 years which went on to win the The Grand Prix, the second highest at the 77th edition of the international festival, and the film which might become one of the most widely distributed Indian indie films of all time. The movie has already released in France across 185 theatres. With the India distribution led by Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media, the movie is scheduled to hit the theatres on November 22. It will be followed by releases in the UK and the United States of America in the same month.

We caught up with Kapadia for a candid chat. Excerpts: