theartsdesk Q&A: filmmaker Payal Kapadia on 'All We Imagine as Light'

Payal Kapadia’s lyrical fiction feature debut All We Imagine as Light, which received the Grand Prix at Cannes in May, is now accruing end-of-year prizes. This week, the New York Film Critics Circle and the voters for the Gotham Awards (which honours independent movies) named it 2024’s Best International Film. More prizes will follow.

All We Imagine as Light, which features dazzling night scenes, blends fiction and documentary. Opening on a near-vérité travelling sequence through the busy Dadar market in Mumbai, Kapadia’s birthplace, it swiftly broadens into the story of three women hospital workers of different ages: the protagonist Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a conscientious staff nurse in her late thirties; Anu (Divya Praba), a younger and less diligent nurse on Prabha’s team, who is also her irresponsible roommate; and the fiftyish cook Parvati (Chhaya Kadam).

The socially reserved Prabha yearns for her absent husband, who decamped to Germany shortly after marrying her. He has stopped contacting her, so she is shocked by his unexpected gift of an expensive rice cooker. The lively Anu and her boyfriend, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), are clandestinely in love. Since she is Hindu and he is Muslim, their future is uncertain, though their immediate concern is finding somewhere to consummate their relationship. Pravati needs somewhere to live. Having been unable to prove that she was a legal occupant of her apartment because only her late husband’s name was on the deed, she has been evicted by ruthless property developers. 

As bonds strengthen between the three, Kapadia explores the complexities of dislocation and urban migration as experienced by women whose lives are circumscribed by an unyielding patriarchal society. The film’s third act, removed from Mumbai, shows how female solidarity offers a ray of light. The Arts Desk caught up with Kapadia on a Zoom call. (Pictured below: Divya Praba and Hridhu Haroon)

PAMELA JAHN: You were born in Mumbai in 1986. How would you describe your personal relation to the city today?

PAYAL KAPADIA: Although my family is from Mumbai, I never felt at home there because I didn't grow up there. I first went to boarding school in Andhra Pradesh, and later I studied at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. It was only when my friends from film school moved to Mumbai that I got to see through their eyes and experiences what everyday life there feels like. And although I now live in Mumbai myself, I still see myself as an outsider. But that's a great privilege because I can see the city from the perspective of someone who is not tied to it but has an abstract connection to the place.
 
Has your perspective changed since you made the film?
 
I have grown fonder of the city. I have become more open to its flaws. It's incredibly difficult to survive in Mumbai. At the same time, the city offers many opportunities and jobs, especially for women who are on their own. It's important to acknowledge the fact that, compared to other parts of the country, it's a place that is much more liberal in this respect.
 
As in your documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021), the theme of separation is central to All We Imagine as Light. Why is it so important to you?
 
Longing is a fascinating feeling. When someone is not there, we project all kinds of things into their absence to fill the void. I have thought about this a lot, and All We Imagine as Light is the result of these reflections. It is a film about the friendship of three women who support each other because they don't have much else left.
 
Parvaty, the oldest of the three women, says at one point that people who go abroad first go crazy and then lose their memory. Where does this thinking come from?x
 
I wanted her character to follow its own logic. Parvati has her own very personal views on life. When she says things like that, there is always something comforting about it. It's a kind of protective mechanism for dealing with the world.
 
A bracing solidarity emerges between these three women from different generations. Does that come from your personal experience?

Yes, I grew up in a family full of women and with this deep sense of community around me – and I still feel that way today. (Pictured below: Kani Kusruti)

By contrast, the men in your film seem to be somewhat lost. And they portray quite the opposite of the macho image popularised in Indian mainstream cinema.
 
When women make films about men, we might be a little gentler with them. More importantly though, I didn't want to divide the world into two categories, with men being bad and women being good. We all operate somewhere in between, and sometimes patriarchy hits both sides equally hard. The key point for me is that the men who cause all the problems in the film are actually absent. Even if they are not physically present, they still exert a certain power over their wives.
 
There are exceptions, though, like Anu's boyfriend Shiaz and Prabha's admirer, Dr. Manoj [Azees Nedumangad], who's trying to win her over, even though he knows she is married.
 
The character of the doctor represents the choice that Prabha has but does not make. She rejects him. Although she is completely alienated from her husband, she still feels bound by the marriage. She has resigned herself to her fate and doesn't even try to break out of her unhappy situation. Anu's relationship with Shiaz, on the other hand, is not legitimate. But she is still young and willing to fight for the love she feels. It is only in the course of the film that Prabha slowly realises that she also has to deal with her feelings.
 
Which of the three women do you feel closest to emotionally?
 
I keep going back and forth between Anu and Prabha. In a way, that was the reason why I wanted to make this film in the first place. I was very preoccupied with how I had behaved towards younger women in the past, or how older women had reacted to me. Sometimes I was annoyed about it, without questioning why they behaved the way they did.
 
Kani Kusruti, who plays Prabha, is the daughter of social activists. How did she develop the character of Prabha, which seems to be in stark contrast to her own upbringing and personality?
 
I originally had her in mind for the younger girl, but that was six or seven years ago. As time went on, we both grew older, and when we finally got around to making the film, she agreed to play Prabha instead. But she always said, “I can't deal with women like that, they annoy me. I just want to shake them until they finally wake up.” Ultimately, working on the film made us both more open to understanding Prabha's behaviour and the decisions she makes. (Pictured below: Chhaya Kadam and Kani Kusruti)

How can young Indian women like Anu ever break out of the cultural traditions into which they were born?
 
There is no single answer to this question. There are many different Indias, each part of the country is shaped by specific cultural characteristics. While it has long been normal for women in Kerala to work and have a job, the situation in the northern provinces is quite different. Each region has its own problems, and I don't just mean the differences between urban and rural areas, but also between central India and coastal areas, north and south.
 
Which developments do you view with concern and which make you optimistic?
 
That's also hard to say, but I will give you an example. After the rape and murder of a young female doctor at the R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata in August this year, there were lots of protest marches in the city in the days that followed. At the same time, the Kerala Hema Committee, formed in 2017 after an actress was raped, put forward clear sanctions in support of women working in the film industry. What I am trying to say is that there are always setbacks but, at the same time, there are also positive developments in the right direction.
 
Why did you focus on Mumbai at night in the first half of the film?
 
To survive in a city like Mumbai, you have to work a lot. There is hardly any free time. Anu and Shiaz can only see each other in the evenings and enjoy the magic of the city. The nights belong to them; under the cover of darkness, they can be free.
 
The film really starts to shine as soon as the story moves to the countryside. When did you decide to change the location?
 
It was planned from the outset. I wanted to represent two different time frames. In Mumbai, the women's lives are very much determined by their daily routine in the hospital, while their trip to Ratnagiri feels more like a forced holiday. Suddenly, everything around them seems to stand still. It makes the women reflect on their lives differently.
 
Why Ratnagiri?
 
For me, a large part of Mumbai's identity is due to the people from Ratnagiri, because it is a region that is closely connected to the city. Over the course of the 20th century, many people came from there to work in the cotton mills, which were the city's largest industry until the 1980s. But with globalisation, the industry lost its importance. Unemployment was incredibly high. It was a desperate time. I wanted to pay tribute to this historical aspect. Even today, there is a direct train connection from the centre of Ratnagiri to the centre of Mumbai.
 
You mentioned that you studied at the Film and Television Institute of India. Did you learn as much about the domestic mainstream film industry as about independent film work?
 
No. It all depends on the opportunities that come your way. Many of my classmates work in the mainstream. I was just lucky enough to come across French producers who were interested in my films and in the kind of hybrid cinema between fiction and documentary that I pursue in my work.
 
Where do you see yourself today as a young filmmaker in India?
 
A lot is shifting in the Indian film industry right now, and I would like to think that I am part of this movement. Even people who started out with very small independent films are now working on mainstream productions without abandoning their political views. That gives me hope. I also admire filmmakers like Rima Das from Assam, who has been consistently producing her own work for many years, reaching many people in her state and beyond. It seems to me that Indian audiences as a whole are more open-minded these days. But again, there is never just one audience. The diversity in our country is extraordinary and holds great potential.

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