Film “All We Imagine as Light” – Payal Kapadia: “I wanted to maintain a feeling of joy”

Payal Kapadia was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her feature debut »All We Imagine as Light«. She is the first Indian person to win such an award. The film tells of the solidarity between three women who moved to Mumbai to work as nurses.

Ms. Kapadia, you are one of the four directors invited to compete at the Cannes Film Festival this year. “All We Imagine as Light” is your feature film debut. That alone is a great success. How are you feeling?

I feel very privileged. This wasn’t a big film project. And we didn’t expect such success. This is an honor for me, and it will also be very good for the film because more people will now see it. I am very happy.

The story has two parts: the Mumbai episode and the rural episode. Why did you choose these two locations?

Mumbai is a city where many people from different parts of India move to work. This creates internal migration because a different language is spoken in every region of our country. And that leads to a kind of alienation. I observed something like this during my time in film school; my friends came from all regions of the country, some of them had to learn Hindi without having spoken a word of it before. This is difficult when you move to a new city and have to learn a new language. You have to negotiate life. That was one of the reasons I wanted to incorporate Mumbai into my story; I wanted to make a film about how to negotiate living and working space. Mumbai is also a city that I know well. I was born there, didn’t always grow up there, but I’m currently living in Mumbai again. This is a place where working for women is a bit easier compared to the rest of the country – there are perhaps only a few places like this left in India.

Interview

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Payal Kapadia was born in Mumbai in 1986. She studied film directing at the Film & Television Institute of India in Pune. Her short documentary film »And What Is The Summer Saying« premiered at the Berlinale in 2018 in the Berlinale Shorts section. For her feature-length documentary “A Night of Knowing Nothing” she won the Golden Eye award in Cannes in 2021 in the Director’s Fortnight series. In 2024 she was appointed to the jury of the Locarno Film Festival. Her feature film debut “All We Imagine as Light” is currently nominated for two Golden Globe Awards (best director, best non-English language film).

And then we have Ratnagiri, where the second part of the film takes place and where the two leading actresses accompany their colleague and friend.

Ratnagiri is a region in south Mumbai that saw many migrations in the early 20th century because many in Mumbai wanted to work in cotton mills. For me, these two places are connected through migration. Over the years, many people lost their jobs in the factories. The women had to go to work to compensate for their husbands’ unemployment. The women from Ratnagiri are, at least in my eyes, considered very tough and strong. I was also interested in the fact that women in India can be financially independent, but completely tied to their family when it comes to other decisions in everyday life and in matters of love. This contradiction somehow hurts me. And that’s something I wanted to express in the film.

In “All We Imagine as Light,” a tender love tries to survive in a repressive atmosphere. There is a conflict between the private and the system. Tell us a bit about this approach.

For me it is the way to engage with a larger social and political discourse in our country; through something very personal that only exists between two people, namely love. The conflict that arises says a lot about society in general. And I want to believe that it is something universal. This could affect many people from different countries, although India is very special when it comes to the caste system and religious bigotry.

The difficult topics are addressed in this film in a light and rather poetic way. How did you manage that?

Maybe it has to do with what kind of person I am. Because I really enjoy things. I wanted to maintain a sense of joy. We tend to complain about how terrible life is and how we just suffer. But that’s not true. You suffer, but you also have other things in life that make you happy: you listen to music and feel good, you eat fried fish and feel good! These human moments of happiness are just as important to me.

What inspired you to write the story about these three different women living and working in Mumbai?

These characters are a sort of juxtaposition of the people, friends, even family members that I know who behave a certain way. For me, the story of the elderly woman Parvaty is the story of the city of Mumbai: she came to Mumbai and tried to find a home there, but she is denied her rights because she has neither the money nor the power to claim them to raise her own property, where she has lived for 22 years. Instead, she gets kicked out of town. So it’s really about negotiating living space in the city and what you call your family or what ultimately becomes family in such a space. Many of my friends have also moved to Mumbai. So at some point I started to see the city differently and think about what we are to each other now. I think some of the ideas came from there.

Is this film critical of capitalism?

Yes, that is anti-capitalist. There is a real estate boom in Mumbai. The market seen at the beginning of the film is the Dadar Flower Market. The same area becomes a multinational corporate district after three hours. So, the flower market is there at three in the morning, after which everything is completely cleaned for certain companies. You see a total gentrification of small shops. This is also a criticism of the city, which is supposed to be inclusive, but it is only inclusive if you have money, otherwise you will be thrown out. In India we are currently moving from a very feudal system to extreme capitalism. There was a moment of socialism in our country that didn’t last long. Only a few things remain from that short time, such as our state schools. Now, coming back to gentrification, if you walk past the area you will see corporate buildings where you need a specific QR code to enter. There are separate elevators for the staff who work there. Outside these buildings it says: “No entry allowed for workers.” In the same area, workers used to work in the cotton mills. To me it is the costly result of crony capitalism.

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Independent Indian cinema, especially that of young directors, is now very successful at renowned festivals such as Cannes, Berlinale and especially at Sundance. At the Sundance Film Festival alone, several Indian feature films and documentaries have won important top prizes in recent years. What is the reason for this success?

I think Indian filmmakers are now seeking more financial support from European institutions. Although some states in India have certain subsidies, we do not have the financial resources to make independent films. Therefore, collaboration with the Europeans leads to more independent films being made. I also think cameras have become more accessible over the years and people can now film without a lot of resources. So technology helps us too.

Are such independent works also popular in India? They are not typical Bollywood films.

There are a lot of people in India. An independent film brings around 20,000 viewers to the cinema; My neighborhood alone has so many residents! (laughs) So even if it’s a small screening, there will be some people who will see the film.

»All We Imagine as Light is the first Indian film in 30 years to be screened in the main competition of the Cannes Film Festival. Is this a big deal in India?

Every state in India has a large film market. Festivals don’t play such a big role. Because we have our own thing going on. It’s a very big industry. A few people will of course know about Cannes; and it’s good that people realize that something is going on here. But most of the population has no idea what this festival is (laughs)!

»All We Imagine as Light«: India, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg 2024. Directed and written by Payal Kapadia. Starring: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon. 114 min. Release date: December 19th.