Indian director Payal Kapadia‘s long journey in support of her Mumbai-set drama All We Imagine as Light finally came to a close last week — with the addition of yet another honor. The film won best picture at the 18th Asia Film Awards in Hong Kong on March 16, capping a nearly year-long run of promotion and accolades that began when it received the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. In between, the critically acclaimed drama about a trio of working women in Mumbai received a Golden Globe nomination, became the subject of an ugly and unfair Oscars controversy at home in India, and opened theatrically in over 50 countries, an unprecedentedly wide reach for a low-budget independently financed Indian feature.
Now, at last, Kapadia can begin focusing on new projects.
“I have two new films in mind,” Kapadia told The Hollywood Reporter in Hong Kong before the AFAs. “Together with All We Imagine as Light, they will form like a triptych. Not a trilogy, because that would imply that they are a connected story. They will be different pieces, all set in Mumbai.”
Stylistically, Kapadia expects the new work will be similar to the poetic naturalism of All We Imagine as Light. Kapadia began as a documentary filmmaker, and the methods of that craft continue to inform her approach to fictional filmmaking. Much of All We Imagine as Light was shot cinéma vérité style on the streets of Mumbai, incorporating the relentless, teeming bustle of the Indian metropolis into the inner lives of the story’s lead characters.
“So much of my style comes from my process,” Kapadia explains. “For All We Imagine as Light, it was about going out into the street to shoot even while I was writing the script. I would shoot a lot of footage with a little camera and then go back to writing. I use the camera as I’m doing my research, and that shapes the form and what comes into the film.”
This method is tangible in the finished film. As THR‘s critic summed up All We Imagine as Light‘s opening sequence: “The camera glides through the streets of Mumbai at night, passing through outdoor markets illuminated by fluorescent lights, like tiny cities unto themselves. On the soundtrack, we hear people talking about their experiences in India’s largest metropolis: ‘I always have the feeling that I’m going to leave,’ one person says. Then at some point we focus on a woman commuting home by train, and the story begins.”
All We Imagine as Light followed three women’s overlapping experiences, drifting in and out of various quarters of Mumbai: A dignified head nurse yearning for her husband who lives in Germany and has only returned to India once for their brief arranged marriage; her outgoing young colleague and roommate who is breaking social custom by carrying on an affair with a young Muslim man; and an older cook from the hospital who is being thrown out of her tenement by a greedy developer who wants to build a skyscraper in its place. Together, against the city’s tumult and depredations, the women find friendship — and a tenuous but lovely form of solidarity.
Kapadia declined to share story details for her next projects, but she says they will again be comprised of women’s stories in India’s biggest city.
She explains: “I’m always interested in Mumbai being a very accepting space for people from all over our country to come to live and work — especially from a woman’s point of view, because it’s not always easy for a woman to live alone in many parts of our country. There will be a lot questions asked and she will feel that stigma. But in some cities — like Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai — these things are possible and accepted. So the next movie is again going to be simple stories about women — especially those working women from other parts of the country — and the difficulties and the pleasure of living in cities.”
Much of All We Imagine as Light‘s poignancy derived from its artfully deployed soundtrack. Kapadia says viewers should expect her forthcoming work to be even more musically driven.
“I really enjoyed using music more in this film, and I now want to go even further and use music more narratively, like having it be part of the story in some way —where it’s not just helping the mise en scene, but has a narrative function,” she says. “That’s something that I’m very excited about, because in Indian cinema, we love our songs. I want to find a way to incorporate the musicality of our Indian cinema more than I did before.”
All We Imagine as Light was co-produced by a collection of small European and Indian independent film companies, with additional financing cobbled together with various grants. In the wake of that film’s local and international success, financing should be less of a challenge for Kapadia and her collaborators on her forthcoming two features. The director, however, said she’s yet to begin considering financiers and will continue to prioritize her creative freedom, whatever new opportunities come her way.
“I’m pretty stubborn, so we’ll see,” she says, laughing. “I prefer to stay true to the core of a film than to make concessions to some external forces. I will try my best to stick to that.”
She adds: “It’s such a long process to make movies like this, so I think every time I’m going to learn something — and I’m just trying to stay totally open to what the next experience gives me.”
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