Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light wins big at Cannes!!! REACTION!!
Added 2024-05-27 22:01:04 +0000 UTC
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Thanks Pratyush
Kiru
2024-05-28 18:14:15 +0000 UTCThank you for this informative post!
Kamalika Ganguly
2024-05-28 01:57:04 +0000 UTCLong post about the movie and some context For anyone not aware - This is a historic achievement and with Payal Kapadia, we might be seeing the rise of an auteur. That too this is her first time making a feature film and she pull off such magic. And did all that despite the Indian Independant film landscape. Kuddos to Payal and the team. We are all so proud and its only fair that a Malayalam language movie wins the second biggest prize at cannes considering Kerala's movie landscape and artists are at another level(in my opinion). This movie is a coming together of artists from all over India and also France. All We Imagine As Light(Malayalam language film about two Malayali Nurses in Mumbai) is directed by Payal Kapadiya(FTII alum, famous for the documentary Night of Knowing Nothing which also premiered and won Golden Eye award at Cannes, one of the best documentary of last decade. Payal is from Mumbai but did schooling in Andra Pradesh. The crew of the movie is majorly from Kerala, Bengal and also France. Screenplay is by Payal and Dialogue is co-written written by Robin Joy(Writer from Kerala also FTII alum) since Payal does not speak Malayalam). Starring Kani Kusruti(Biryani, The Poacher, Killer Soup) who is a famous star in Kerala, and Divya Prabha(became famous with Ariyippu by Mahesh Narayanan that also played in Locarno film festival and won an award), is the first Indian movie after 30 years, to be competing for Palme d'or at Cannes. The last time an Indian movie was competing was a Malayalam movie called Swaham in '94, which lost to Pulp Fiction eventually. But Swaham won Camera D'or at Cannes and is regarded as a masterpiece. The Director of Swaham, Shaji N Karun also went to Cannes with Mohanlal with their movie Vanaprastham(which played out of competition). Here is their picture from Cannes that year https://x.com/busigoatt/status/1794739536179990648 The Movie also stars another Malayali Actor Hridhu Haroon and also the recent breakout Star Chayya Kadam(Laapata Ladies, Sairat). Music is done by a Bengali Musician who goes by the name of Topshe and the DOP is Payal's own Partner, Ranabir Das(Both him and Payal are also co-producers). The Trailer is indeed phenomenal and Im very much looking forward to the movie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAkmSO-ngOc&ab_channel=ScreenInternational Good News about North America Distribution - Its a huge deal that Janus films, of Drive My Car and EO, both of who won an Oscar bought All We Imagine As Light last week. I am optimistic that this movie is going to get a good campaign push in North America and this is so very exciting. The chances of this being nominated and even winning are really good considering how Janus has campaigned for others in the past. Add to that that this won the freaking Grand Prix makes it so exciting for it having long legs. BUT Some pessimistic news Regarding the Movie as Indian's Oscar entry - The big problem is that India actually needs to send this as their oscar entry and that is something that they cannot be trusted with for political reasons(Payal's last film, A Night of Knowing Nothing was not allowed to release in India by the govt, and when you watch it, you will know exactly why). In 2015, India's Right Win government hired their stooge Gajendra Chauhan(a huge bigot) as the Chairman of FTII in hopes to hijacking and weaponizing FTII like they have done with Bollywood. Payal led the student protest against his hiring not only because he was a bigot but also very unqualified for the position. As a way to punish and curb dissent, Payal Kapadia faced disciplinary action for protesting against this appointment. She had lost her scholarship and is still facing Court Case. Infact next month is her next court hearing by the case launched against her by FTII. So unless someone in the Indian Film Federation goes rogue and fights to get this nominated, it is looking unlikely that the Right Wing government will nominated this film. And even if we leave politics aside, the Film Federation is so incompetent and pathetic that chances of them messing up this opportunity is high. Previously they messed up the opportunity to nominated Lunch Box, Kumbalangi Nights(Fahadh Faasil has been critical of right wing government so there is an opinion that it was snubbed to punish him), RRR, Sairat, Great Indian kitchen, Sardar Uddham and many others. Last year, Anatomy of a Fall was not sent by France for similar reasons(Justine Triet had a Fiery speech against Macron Government) and it went on to get nominated and also win for other categories so maybe thats what All We Imagine As Light should also aim for. Lastly, hope you all will watch this great interview(10 mins) by Payal and Ranabir that happened days before their Cannes win https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_Nc6YyU5jU&ab_channel=FilmCompanion Their post premiere Cannes press conference with the Media is also amazing. In the end it became a love fest for Malayalam cinema which was also cool https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHCL7VbZCKo&ab_channel=FestivaldeCannes Apologies for the long post. Hope some of this info is helpful :)
Pratyush A
2024-05-28 00:07:29 +0000 UTC
