The company picked upAll We Imagineout of Cannes and began a limited release stateside on November 14.
All We Imagine As Lightnow enters the awards season as one of the years strongest and most popular titles.
She tells me shes a bit nervous about returning home with the film.
Payal Kapadia at the 15th Governors AwardsGilbert Flores
Its not easy to release a film like this in India.
There is also a connection with the actors there because audiences recognize them.
Theyve become household names.
Kapadia describes the Indian cinematic landscape as a large and diverse self-contained system.
Local audiences arent so fussed with awards and acclaim out of Cannes.
But the most useful commodity, Kapadia says, is local notoriety.
Its still all about your local cinema and what film is coming out there.
The local actors you love and turn up for and the local directors who inspire you.
Its a very self-contained system.
Kapadia also shares some details about her next feature project.
DEADLINE:Payal, how are you?
PAYAL KAPADIA:Im good.
The film was released this week in America and we open on November 22 in India.
A lot of films, even the big ones, dont always do well in the theaters.
So I was a bit nervous that I wouldnt get a distributor.
DEADLINE:The film has been traveling all over the world.
Where have you had the best screening so far?
KAPADIA:I think the film had a pretty great screening in the UK.
We also had a really good screening here at the New York Film Festival, which was amazing.
The wildest screening was in Mumbai.
We opened the Mumbai Film Festival.
It was in this old cinema, which is a famous Mumbai artifact.
Its called Regal Cinema.
Its an old-school single-screen cinema with a balcony and dress circle.
The sound is awful.
They have all the fans on because its so hot.
But it was still so nice because the film was finally screened in Mumbai, where it was shot.
DEADLINE:Youre returning to India to release the film.
Its a sort of weird nationalism people bestowed on you.
How have you felt about that?
KAPADIA:We have a very large ecosystem of films.
So the local films that may come out in Kerala in Tamil are the films people actually anticipate.
Its still all about your local cinema and what film is coming out there.
The local actors you love and turn up for and the local directors who inspire you.
Its a very self-contained system.
So I wouldnt call myself the face of Indian cinema in that sense.
The national awards in India hold a lot of importance.
People may know the Oscars a little more than Cannes.
India is a very self-contained system.
So is your first featureA Night Of Knowing Nothing.
ButAll We Imagineis now mostly only discussed in terms of its aesthetics.
Critics talk about its beauty.
Have you noticed that?
What do you think about it?
Im negotiating this all the time as a filmmaker.
Now, the angle you are discussing is the viewing of the film.
But its a fine line and Im always trying to balance that in my head.
DEADLINE:This film is very invested in cinematic language.
The narrative is advanced by what we see and hear, not necessarily dialogue.
With that in mind, how do you write screenplays?
What do your scripts look like?
There are certain things you cant describe with words that, to me, rely on sound.
So that becomes very tricky to write into a script.
It took me a while to understand how to become a more efficient writer, which was important.
Theyre not going to want to read this descriptive essay on what the sounds of Mumbai feel like.
So it took me some time to distill that.
My producers had a big role to play in distilling some of those ideas and giving me a push.
So I took a lot of liberties at that stage.
DEADLINE:When did you first know you wanted to be a director?
KAPADIA:I actually had very little respect for what it was to be a director.
Theres this whole attitude in India where the directors are just brooding men walking around.
So I wanted to be an editor.
I felt that was something concrete, and I understood what everyday life would be like as an editor.
I was fascinated by editing as a craft.
My mother is an artist and she made video work quite often.
And the editing she did was the first piece of the filmmaking process I saw being done.
Obviously, that was not the case, but I felt like I could really see things.
So I wanted to be an editor.
I applied to the film school right after college and didnt get in.
I was really disappointed and didnt know what to do with my life.
So I applied to film school again for directing and was accepted.
Why do you think youve blown up now with this film?
DEADLINE:Youre going to hate this question but I have to ask about the Indian Oscar committee.
Of course, they didnt choose your film.
But more interesting to me was their reasoning.
They saidAll We Imagine As Lightwasnt Indian enough.
What do you think they meant by that?
DEADLINE:When will you be done promoting the film and be able to go home?
KAPADIA:By the end of December.
The main releases will be over with the UK, U.S., Spain and India.
At that point, I hope to chill and start working on another film.
DEADLINE:Do you know what the film will be?
KAPADIA:Itll be a film set in Mumbai.
Ill have to find that balance between formalistic choices and accessibility from an Indian context.
KAPADIA:I feel a balance can be found.
you’re free to play around a lot with your politics and your cinematic intentions.
I feel like that is a more interesting challenge for filmmakers.
American filmmakers do this a lot because its always been a struggle to create certain types of films here.
