For Payal Kapadia, director of All We Imagine As Light, awards don’t define the value of a piece of work. Kapadia’s film was the first Indian production in 30 years to compete in the main competition at Cannes and the 38-year-old is the first female Indian filmmaker whose film has won the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Her film also won the RTVE-Another Look Award at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and Silver Hugo-Jury Prize at the Chicago International Film Festival. Speaking to us ahead of her film’s theatrical release on November 22 in India, Kapadia says awards are a “bonus” and not the measure of how a film is liked. Though she does know that “it is because of the awards that this film is getting distribution.”
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“I am not taking that away,” she says, adding, “Honestly the awards feel great. I am really happy to receive them and I am not saying I don’t care about them. But, it is a privilege to make films and I want to be able to show it [the film] here in India. I want people to go watch it, accept it and say what they feel about it. If it is locally appreciated, if people go to buy tickets and it runs at least, I will be very happy.”
The film took five years to make, says Kapadia, and adds that the process was difficult because it took her and her team a long time to raise funds.
‘Not really thinking that I should get a prize’
Reflecting on her film’s success at Cannes, Kapadia says, “When we went to Cannes, we didn’t think we were going there to get a prize. We got an email saying we were going to be in Un Certain Regard [the festival’s second-most prestigious competitive section]. And then, the night before, they told us we were in the [main] competition—Palme d’Or. We were thrilled.”
The other directors who were competing for the Palme d’Or—the Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes and English filmmaker Andrea Arnold—are films she has watched as a student, says Kapadia, an alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune. “For me, that itself was something so big and overwhelming that I was not really thinking that I should get a prize,” she says.
However, for her, “the main thing is that people give me the right kind of feedback and that people watch it and they tell me what they think about it.” She adds, “If people understand what I was trying to do with the little Easter Eggs in the film—that for me is the greatest joy.”
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What about the Oscars?
After All We Imagine As Light won the Grand Prix and gained global attention, the film was widely regarded as a contender for India’s official entry to the Oscars. It was also shortlisted by France for its Oscar selection. However, both countries ultimately chose other films. While India chose Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies as its official entry, France picked Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez.
Asked about what she feels about Rao’s film being chosen instead of hers, Kapadia says, “I was happy. I really liked the film, and I liked her [Kiran Rao’s] previous movie [Dhobi Ghat] as well. It’s also about Mumbai and I have been a fan since then.”
On social media speculation about whether the Rao’s film’s selection was because of her ex-husband and Laapataa Ladies producer, actor Aamir Khan’s influence, Kapadia says, “He does have a good track record with the Oscars,” referring to the 2002 campaign Khan ran for Lagaan. Lagaan (2001), directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, is only the third Indian film to have secured an Oscars nomination. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film award.
“They (Aamir Khan and his team) understand the Oscars are a very complicated thing. So in that sense, they have done it before, they have experience, maybe that will help. Also, I think when you take your film [to the Oscars], there is a whole campaign, it’s difficult and expensive,” says Kapadia.
Asked if she would want to take All We Imagine As Light to the Oscars independently, Kapadia says, “The film is releasing in the US on November 15. We are going to see the response. The Oscars is a campaigning process, I am learning now. Also, the distributor has to decide whether it’s worth the while and it will really depend on that. I read all those speculations saying this film should have gone and it would have had a better chance, but who really knows which film has a better chance, it’s so random,” she wraps up.
