Oon May 26, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated filmmaker Payal Kapadia on her Cannes success Everything We Think of as Lighthis drama is scheduled to be released in the US on November 15. Not only was it the first Indian film to compete in Cannes in 30 years, it was also the first to win the festival’s Grand Prix, its iconic silver medal. In his statement, Modi cited Kapadia’s film school, the government-backed Film and Television Institute of India (or FTII), and the “rich arts in India.” From afar, it seemed like a rare message of celebration and support for the institutions. But a closer look reveals its hypocrisy, given both the government’s past treatment of Kapadia, and Indian filmmaking more broadly.
In 2015, Kapadia was one of 35 students arrested after protesting the Modi government’s selection of a new FTII chairman. “Many of us got into trouble with the police,” the filmmaker recalled. “But then again, it’s a very normal part of our Indian life. You protest, you get in trouble.” The arrest came on the 68th day of a nearly 5-month-long protest against the government’s nominee, actor-turned-politician Gajendra Chauhan, because of his connections with Modi’s ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and his relative inexperience in cinema. to the former chairman, and what several students saw as an obvious exaggeration. Kapadia was then stripped of the scholarship and the opportunity to participate in the exchange program. He eventually graduated, and FTII even continued to financially support his trip to Cannes in 2017, as well as his short film, Afternoon Clouds. However, the criminal case against him, along with several students, is still open.
Since then, Kapadia has made films on the fringes of the Indian film industry. In order to do so, he had to seek foreign funding (much of it French), telling stories that directly rebuked India’s political establishment. This was easily seen in his first feature, black and white text The Night of Ignorancea dramatized story set against the real background of the aforementioned student protests, the film narrates in vivid detail. The film also premiered at Cannes in 2021, where it premiered in the Directors Fortnight section, and won the L’Œil d’or award for Best Documentary.
Kapadia’s critique of India and its political structures is the broader context from which his recent work emerges. Everything We Think of as Light is her first narrative feature, and follows three working-class women in Mumbai: two migrant nurses from the southern state of Kerala, and a hospital peon from a coastal suburb. A gentle and light drama about sisters in modern India, full of temporary genre, as the characters come and go from the country’s financial capital. However, it is arguably as political as the history of Kapadia’s protest.
Interspersed within the intergenerational tale of female friendship is an episode about one of the nurses, Anu (Divya Prabha). A Hindu woman falls in love with a young Muslim man, Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon), much to the chagrin of his middle-aged roommate Prabha (Kani Kusruti). Prabha doesn’t make her objection clear, but she touches lightly on the idea of how Anu’s love can be seen outside their domestic sanctum. These concerns include the fear-mongering concept of a “love jihad” conspiracy propagated by right-wing Hindu nationalists, who accuse Muslim men of forcibly marrying and converting Hindu women. No character says this out loud, but the fear of these false accusations is widespread; the issue is so charged and prevalent in modern India that it resonates vividly in the images Kapadia presents.
This subtle point of view is the default language of Franca’s film, with Kapadia avoiding overtly political overtones in the dialogue. For example, when Kapadia first introduces himself in the Muslim-dominated Shiaz area, his shot reveals a few frames of a passing tractor, a fleeting image that may remind us of the BJP government’s recent removal of Muslim areas, which have become a stronghold. became a widespread symbol of Muslim oppression. One such vehicle was even emblazoned with the BJP logo and rolled out during the India Day Parade in Edison, New Jersey in 2022.
“I me in the square it’s a big part of the language of the film,” explains Kapadia. “Not in terms of visual language, but political language. It adds a lot of layers that I think affect the viewer a little bit.”
Kapadia adds that the tractor has a “double meaning.” In another episode, Anu and Prabha’s old friend and hospital colleague Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), whose late husband was in charge of all their belongings and documents, is about to be evicted from her home of 20 years, due to ruthless developers who want to build new high-rises for Mumbai’s rich. The real estate billboards seem bigger than the letters, as reminders of what they stand to lose, and what the moneyed ruling class thinks they deserve. In addition to evoking sympathy for Shiaz, by telling about the dangers he faces as part of the Indian Muslim community, “the bulldozer… is probably going to demolish another building somewhere,” the filmmaker explained.
In Everything We Think of as Lightthe main sources of personal drama are the boundaries between people and the inequalities that are carried out as divisions between members of different classes, castes, religious communities, and genders. For example, Prabha is married, but her husband—whom she didn’t know before they got married—now lives abroad and hardly speaks to her. He is forced to be patient and put up with this strange situation, lest he offend the whole society. Divorce is frowned upon in India, so when Prabha is courted by a lovely employee, Dr. Manoj (Azee Nedumangad), has no choice but to reprimand him. Each character in the film is a victim of wider social conditions, but their relationship cuts across these divisions. According to Kapadia, the themes woven into all of his films stem from his own self-exploration, based on the fulfillment of the desire to “what if.”
“I have many questions about myself and the world around me. Cinema becomes a way to try to answer those questions,” explained Kapadia. “Some questions how I behaved in certain situations, when I think it was not the best thing. Elsewhere in the relationship between Prabha and Anu are the problems I have had with generational friendships with women. I think it comes from grief and accountability, and the need to deal with how I worry about myself, and the things around me .”
“The personal is political,” a term coined by second-wave feminists in the 1960s, a long-standing aphorism that rings absolutely true in Kapadia’s work. While The Night of Ignorance seeing him turn the world around him, its student demonstration tale also follows the fictional story of an anonymous FTII student, “L,” whose love letters and old film reels detail the deep politics and art of the institution’s student body. . In portraying L obala’s problems, Kapadia creates a portal for a young couple torn by class divides, a story that includes a central narrative of protest.
In Everything We Think of as Lightthe romantic and domestic struggles of Anu, Prabha, and Parvaty may be personal, but they are rooted in the many ways in which Indian women’s lives are politicized. The way Islamophobes might understand Shiaz also denies Anu her agency, while the scandalous gossip of her colleagues wants to put strict limits on her sex life. Social pressures surrounding the marriage keep Prabha trapped in a phantom, and Parvaty’s loss of her home combined with her husband’s perception of her as the sole owner of her property; as long as he does not have the necessary documents to prove otherwise, he is denied citizenship again.
In presenting the lives of her female characters in such vivid detail, Kapadia’s portrayal stands out against the backdrop of Indian cinema’s cynical and rigid norms. The film’s approach to bare breasts, female body hair, and bodily functions (such as female urination), is gentle and straightforward, flying in the face of the supposed “modesty” that Indian women are often forced to adhere to, on screen as well. turned off. Kapadia, however, says challenging sensibilities was not his primary goal; rather, it was a byproduct of a cinematic worldview. “The motivation is not to change anyone’s mind, but to try to present a world that I feel is underrepresented in what I see,” Kapadia said.
The film ties nudity not just to desire, but to independence, in ways that transcend sexuality. The scene where Anu and Prabha argue shows the previous undressing in their shared bathroom, which causes a disturbing sense of unease in Anu’s old roommate. “It’s like attacking Prabha with her nudity, because she knows what the result will be for her,” explained Kapadia. “I wanted this independence of his desire to be limitless.” In contrast, when Anu makes love to Shiaz, she is always scantily clad, a decision that has less to do with research, and more to do with Anu’s agency. “In the sex scene, he’s not naked because he doesn’t want to be.”
Kapadia’s films offer new approaches to the most intimate parts of Indian women’s lives, and how politics affects them. However, when asked if he sees himself, or his filmmaking, as great, he is reluctant to accept such labels. He says: “I don’t like to pretend to be a hero or a martyr.” “I feel very conflicted. I don’t think cinema can change anything in a country like ours. It’s fundamental. [that changes things] and serving people in communities. And what does the film actually do? I don’t know.”
Kapadia’s movies don’t just tell stories about challenging the status quo. They serve as acts of protest in themselves, especially since the Indian cinema scene tends to be hostile to small arthouse films—especially those that seek to challenge government norms. What can be done to give these stories a better chance? “A complete structural overhaul?” Kapadia jokes. Then again, it might not be such a bad idea, if it leads to films like his being made and seen more widely.
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