Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Filmmaker Payal Kapadia is currently enjoying the global recognition of her film All We Imagine As Light, after it won the Grand Prix at Cannes 2024. Looking forward to its official theatrical release, Payal sat down for a conversation with Shubhra Gupta after the film’s first screening in Delhi at Express Film Club by SCREEN, on November 8.
During the session’s Q&A segment, where a viewer asked about the film’s unique title, Payal shared, “There are many stories for this. There were many connections to the story with this title… Imagine, light having to do with possibility. When you are all the time in a social situation when you don’t think another way is possible, another way is actually possible. That’s what the title was talking about. And, it’s also the title of one of my mother’s paintings. It really stayed with me. Moreover, I kept the name of the character Prabha and its meaning in Malayalam is light. So, I also wanted to do word play. Everything that Prabha thought also was everything you thought as light. I got an extra bonus there!”
Payal, who directed a thriller documentary A Night Of Knowing Nothing, before her first feature film, joked that All We Imagine As Light ends on a happy note because her “previous movie ended very sadly.” “On a serious note, that’s just one moment of happiness and acceptance, abhi toh picture baaki hai (the story is not completed yet). What they need to do is yet to come. The choices that they made at that moment was just the happiness of being together and seeing each other. That moment of togetherness is hopeful, but each of them have to fight their own battles,” she added.
One of the cine fans asked about the thought of using Malayalam as a dominant language in the film and how she managed to shoot, not knowing the language. “First I thought it was a great idea, but then I was hitting myself because it is very difficult to direct a movie in a language you don’t speak. But, I had a lot of people working on the film with me to rework the dialogues and add GenZ slangs,” she said.
The filmmaker continued, “The reason I wanted to do it in Malayalam was because initially the stories I got were from the Malayali nurses I had met. Moreover, when one comes to a city, language can be a huge barrier, that was something I wanted to play with also, as you can talk loudly in public and no one would understand, giving you and the other person some privacy. Malayalam became a way for me to do that also, hence I took up the challenge.”
Set to release in the theatres on November 22 in India, All We Imagine As Light features Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam.
Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.
