Payal Kapadia's Golden-Globe-nominated movie All We Imagine as Light is a big awards contender

For Indian director Payal Kapadia, making a film is like running a marathon, and she won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for "All We Imagine as Light." "It’s really about looking at your feet, and not where you want to end up," she said. Throughout this long journey, she appreciated every bit of funding, thinking, "Okay, now you’re closer to making the film," even when facing funding challenges during shooting.

The journey was so long that Kapadia also made another film in between – the boundary-blurring documentary, "A Night of Knowing Nothing." But the wait for "All We Imagine as Light" was worth it. Set in bustling Mumbai, mostly shot at night, with its dazzling lights, it focuses on three women fighting for their own rights.

Kani Kusruti plays Prabha, a calm nurse who sparks a connection with poet-doctor Manoj (Aziz Nedumangad), but she can’t act on it due to her husband, who left for work in Germany and never returned. Her young roommate and hospital colleague, Annu (Divya Prabha), is secretly in love with a young Muslim man, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), a relationship neither of their families would accept. Prabha struggles to sleep at night, tormented by an electric rice cooker sent by her husband, feeling bound despite his abandonment. Annu, on the other hand, just wants to find a place where she and Shiaz can finally be together, regardless of what people say. "That’s the core conflict, the two women and their relationship with their desires," Kapadia said. "One is deeply bound by social morality, and the other is not, but society still intrudes into her private life."

Their internal struggles reflect societal expectations of women. "Prabha's relationship with her husband is not really a relationship, but it’s considered more legitimate than Annu’s with Shiaz," Kapadia said. "Poor Manoj is a casualty of all of this because Prabha is so bound by her moral baggage that she can’t even explore if she wants to be with him." Meanwhile, older women like their friend Parvati (Chhaya Kadam), who are being displaced by the tide of urban development, are fighting for their demolished apartment buildings. "Development is important, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of the majority of people," Kapadia said. "Unfortunately, that’s what’s happening in Mumbai, especially with public spaces and people’s apartments being so far away from their workplaces. There’s constant displacement, so while it’s not a major plot point, I felt like I couldn’t talk about Mumbai without talking about that."

In the film's final scene, all three escape to the sea. "All We Imagine as Light" opens with a Greek chorus, where we hear unseen residents sharing their realities of life in Mumbai, in segments that resemble a documentary. Similar to "A Night of Knowing Nothing," it blurs the lines between fact and fiction, allowing the film to seamlessly transition from social reality to magical realism. "You can wake up from a dream and feel terrible the next day, and that affects your reality, so they are also realities," Kapadia said of this blurring of lines. "These boundaries should be blurred because it's more freeing." In the film, the waves roar in an unassuming way, thanks to the film’s gentle, unstable sound design, and a captivating score. The film also makes surprising use of the late Ethiopian star Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou's tinkling jazz piano, and the synth stylings of Kolkata artist, Topshé.

All these artistic touches underscore Kapadia’s sharp commentary on the attempted erosion of India’s 700 spoken languages. "India is pushing for linguistic homogenization, but the fact is that most people don’t speak the language (Hindi) that they’re trying to make dominant," Kapadia said. "It’s also a feature of big cities, because there’s so much migration, you always hear multiple languages." Manoj feels alienated for not speaking Hindi, despite Prabha’s best efforts to teach him. For Annu and Shiaz, language becomes a “privacy mode.” "They can talk about very private things on a crowded bus because probably nobody understands. So it can also create a little bubble of privacy, and privacy is a privilege."

Growing up, Kapadia’s mother took her to see countless films. Mumbai has a particularly active community of documentary filmmakers, and Kapadia was impressed by Deepa Dhanraj. Later, she watched many European films at film school. "That sparked my interest in different ways of seeing." Seeing is believing. Kapadia is happy that she is now making her own films, with "All We Imagine as Light" gaining worldwide attention after winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival (considered the second biggest prize at Cannes, after the Palme d’Or) and earning the director a Golden Globe nomination. Strangely, India did not submit it as their entry for Best International Oscar, but this doesn't bother the director. "Making the film itself was a big deal," Kapadia said. "Everything else is a bonus." As for those who criticize its explicit sexuality, Kapadia won't lose sleep over it. "India is a complex country, and as a filmmaker, one can only try to touch some sensitive nerves a little bit."