Payal Kapadia: Cannes win helped with the distribution of All We Imagine As Light in India

You felt that erstwhile you moved there?

I americium really from Mumbai but I didn’t ever unrecorded there. I went to schoolhouse successful Andhra Pradesh and truthful I can’t accidental that I person puerility friends from Mumbai oregon that benignant of connection. Maybe that’s wherefore I tin beryllium a small spot much distant from the metropolis and its allure. It’s a precise analyzable metropolis due to the fact that astatine the extremity of the day, it’s precise brutal. Also determination is changeless displacement wrong the city… it’s ever successful a authorities of flux.

So this feeling of a perpetually changing metropolis and for idiosyncratic who’s kept going and coming retired of the city, you spot those changes overmuch more, particularly successful the country wherever the movie is situated, which is Lower Parel and Dadar. These are areas that utilized to person fabric mills, mostly until the ’80s and ’90s. If you present spell to that area, you’ll lone spot 1 chimney near of the fabric mills and they’ve been replaced by these elephantine buildings. These are often similar multinational corporations oregon gated communities wherever determination are abstracted elevators for the unit and residents. They’ve go malls and spaces that whoever lived determination earlier could ne'er really access. It’s a precise convulsive gentrification that has taken place.

There were each these elements of Mumbai that frustrated maine but I inactive find myself attracted to the city. So I’m confused and that’s successful the movie I think. And I ever wanted to marque a movie astir intergenerational relationship due to the fact that that’s thing that I person thought a batch astir successful my idiosyncratic life.

The infirmary abstraction became a spot wherever I could speech astir each these antithetic elements and person antithetic kinds of friendships. One of the things that I support saying is that sometimes your household lets you down but relationship is simply a precise unfastened relationship. Friendship tin spell beyond the limitations of your contiguous individuality and, perhaps, make a caller benignant of enslaved depending connected the 2 friends and nary 1 else. Everything successful our lives is truthful codified— mother, father, truthful overmuch weightage is enactment connected these relationships, but relationship is unfastened and that’s nice.

Divya Prabha and Kani Kusruti successful a inactive from All We Imagine arsenic Light.

Can you speech a spot astir the nurses who looked aft your begetter and your grandma and however you got to cognize them?

My begetter is often successful the infirmary due to the fact that helium suffers from dementia. It started erstwhile I was a pupil astatine FTII (Film and Television Institute of India, Pune), and since I was the astir vela (free) idiosyncratic successful the family, I had to beryllium and hold extracurricular successful the waiting rooms. Even if my grandma had a fall, I was sent to beryllium with her. At that time, I was penning my diploma movie (at FTII), and erstwhile you’re a movie student, everything is interesting. So whenever I would get a accidental to chat with the nurses, I would. I made friends with immoderate of them. Also the infirmary abstraction for maine was absorbing due to the fact that I could speech astir galore different things similar contraception oregon conscionable different things astir women’s bodies.

Your movie is simply a co-production and a batch of wealth has travel from France. How important was it for you to person got the backing from a spot which is not Bollywood, which doesn’t hindrance you to the benignant of things that you would person to bash if you were getting wealth successful India?

As a pupil successful FTII, I had a movie that travelled a bit, called And What is the Summer Saying, and the French producers I enactment with, saw the film, liked it and got successful interaction with me. The French producer, Thomas (Hakim), had besides lone made abbreviated films until then, truthful it was a travel that we took together.

We stayed successful interaction aft this festival and helium said that successful France, they person a antithetic strategy and you tin use for backing and marque the movie that you tendency without marketplace forces being the superior crushed to marque the film. So I discovered the French backing strategy done them. It is precise good structured and it makes the process a small little lonely.

How important was it for you to person that large Cannes infinitesimal erstwhile you won the grant (Grand Prix)?

It was truly surreal. We were truthful blessed that we could marque the film, that we could decorativeness the movie the mode we wanted to. When it got selected, we were ecstatic. And for our French producers also, the Cannes festival is precise important. Then we got a call. If you triumph a prize successful Cannes, they archer you successful the greeting that you person won something, deterioration bully apparel and come. But they don’t archer you what prize you person won. So determination is simply a spot of anticipation.

There has been a full batch of speech astir the Oscars and however your movie was successful the fray and past finally, however it didn’t marque the cut. What were you feeling then?

Honestly, with this film, everything that we’ve gotten beyond making the movie has been similar a bonus. One of the nicest things for maine that came retired of the Cannes triumph was that we got organisation successful India, which I deliberation is truly important. A batch of autarkic filmmakers marque a movie but it doesn’t get shown successful cinemas due to the fact that there’s specified a batch of competition. Even large films close now, you know, sometimes don’t bash well.

…I deliberation that the movie that they chose (Laapataa Ladies for the Oscars) is simply a precise bully movie and I enjoyed watching it precise much. It’s a manager whose erstwhile movie excessively I loved.

You were talking astir Chhaya Kadam’s quality (Parvathy), astir however you lived successful a location for 22 years, but due to the fact that you didn’t person immoderate documents, you could not accidental that you lived there. How did that quality travel about? You are saying thing truly important successful today’s clip wherever individuality and religion person go truthful important arsenic markers for the beingness that we are living.

I consciousness that the quality of Parvathy is synonymous with women, particularly women from the Konkan region. It was again a mode of linking the script backmost to the mills. Through the 20th century, determination has been a batch of migration from the Konkan portion to Mumbai, particularly of men who worked successful the mills. And past erstwhile the onslaught happened, everybody mislaid their jobs. It was the women who had to measurement up and go breadstuff winners of the family. They had nary clip for self-pity, it was similar ‘just get connected with it’ and I consciousness that is specified a spot of the Maharashtrian women of Mumbai.

For me, that’s a precise important diagnostic of the women successful Mumbai, who are from Ratnagiri and Raigarh areas. I wanted it to beryllium an ode to them arsenic good due to the fact that an erasure of a peculiar past of a peculiar portion successful Mumbai has been systematically going on. I felt I should speech astir it successful the movie due to the fact that Bombay can’t beryllium talked astir without that.