I have a confession: I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed an Indian film. While I have found myself at a cinema every time I have gone back to Australia, visited family in Kerala, or even the one vacation I stayed with family friends in Hull, watching the most recently released Malayalam/Hindi/Tamil film, each time I have found myself reaching for my phone and sneakily scrolling through Instagram, wishing I had come up with a better excuse to stay home.

So when I heard an Indian film had won the Grand Prix at Cannes, I was surprised. Amongst the many Indian films marked by extravagant musical numbers, melodramatic plotlines, and larger-than-life male heroes, what would draw such praise from the world’s most prestigious film festival?

“When I heard an Indian film had won the Grand Prix at Cannes, I was surprised”

For me, it is the quietness of Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light (2024) that allows it to shine. Kapadia, with her roots in documentary filmmaking, crafts an intimate portrayal of three women navigating the complexities of life as outsiders in Mumbai. Prabha (Kani Kusruti), Anu (Divya Prabha), and Parvati (Chhaya Kadam) are not defined by grand spectacles but by their everyday struggles – Prabha’s estrangement from her husband who moved to Germany shortly after their arranged marriage, Anu’s attempts to conceal her interfaith relationship with her Muslim boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), and Parvati’s forced eviction due to a lack of documentation following her husband’s death and relentless urban development. In a film industry dominated by men, Kapadia’s choice to centre such female experiences is both refreshing and necessary.

Given the Grand Prix win and the Golden Globes nomination, it seemed almost certain that Kapadia’s second feature film would be India’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. Shockingly though, the 13-member all-male jury of the Film Federation of India (FFI) chose Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies (2023), a light-hearted Aamir Khan-produced film about two young newly-wed brides who accidentally get swapped. In response to subsequent criticism, FFI President Ravi Kottarakara’s defence was that, for the selection committee, watching All We Imagine as Light supposedly felt like “watching a European film taking place in India, not an Indian film taking place in India.”

I can understand where this criticism might come from. In terms of style, Kapadia herself has admitted in interviews she drew inspiration from films such as Chantal Akerman’s News From Home (1976) and Marguerite Duras’ The Negative Hands (1978). In terms of funding, too, with the assorted consortium of European production companies that financed the film, All We Imagine as Light is the result of co-production between France, India, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy. But even on these two counts, it is difficult to justify this criticism. After all, Kapadia was trained at The Film and Television Institute of India. Her reliance on external sources of funding arguably draws from the lack of institutional support she faces in India as an independent filmmaker. Increasingly nepotistic and dominated by Bollywood and mainstream regional cinema, the Indian film industry provides limited opportunities for Kapadia’s style of introspective and politically sensitive storytelling.

“The debate surrounding All We Imagine as Light reflects broader issues within Indian cinema”

Fundamentally, labelling All We Imagine as Light a ‘European’ film ignores how the film’s core – the emotions, relationships, and struggles it portrays – resonates deeply with Indian realities in ways many mainstream productions do not. Like Prabha and Anu, many Malayalee women move outside of Kerala as nurses in search of a better life – my own mother and aunts are examples. The scenes where the Malayalee nurses make plans or gossip inside the hospital or when Dr Manoj asks Prabha for help with Hindi feel so achingly familiar. Similarly, Anu and Shiaz’s concerted efforts to maintain the secret of their relationship are reminiscent of how even when you leave your hometown, it seems you still cannot escape those cultural constraints. Having spent a month in Kerala completing fieldwork on women’s empowerment, I was struck by how the protagonists’ worries and concerns mirrored those of many of the women I interviewed. What is perhaps most impressive is that Kapadia is able to authentically capture all of this, despite the film mainly taking place in a language she is not familiar with.

At its heart, the debate surrounding All We Imagine as Light reflects broader issues within Indian cinema. If the definition of an ‘Indian’ film is confined to mainstream Bollywood or regional commercial cinema or films purely funded by Indian sources, then Kapadia’s work may seem like an outlier. But if an Indian film is one made by an Indian director, which authentically captures the diverse lived experiences of its people, then All We Imagine as Light is one of the most profoundly Indian films I have ever seen.

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