‘There’s a bit of me in all the characters’

After All We Imagine As Light wins the coveted Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival, director Payal Kapadia talks about the ideas behind the film, and how she managed to get funding for her independent film

-  NAMRATA JOSHI

The first Indian film after 30 years of Shaji N Karun's Swaham (1994) and the first ever by an Indian woman filmmaker to find a spot in the official Competition section of Cannes Film Festival, it has now posted yet another milestone, bagging the coveted Grand Prix, the second highest award after the Palme d'Or.

A sublime, luminous rumination on the lives of three ordinary women Prabha, Anu and Parvati in Mumbai. The film struck a universal emotional chord with its mix of melancholy and optimism.

The Malayalam-Marathi-Hindi language film is an India-France Netherlands-Luxembourg co-production, and its win is expected to profoundly impact the course ahead for Indian independent cinema.

CE caught up with Payal at Palais des Festivals' Audio-Visual Terrace.

It was the day after the film's world premiere and a day before the formal closing ceremony, with Payal being nonchalant about the awards. Getting selected for the competition was a victory itself, she told us. However, Cannes had a bigger gift in store for her.

Excerpts:

Tell us the origin story of All We Imagine As Light the characters came to you first or did the many themes of the film come first?

I think it was all together. I had a few scenes in my mind that I was keen on. Like the hallucinating old lady in the hospital and ending with the fable.