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Agence France-Presse

While Indian cinema is best known for Bollywood extravaganzas, it is an art-house film about three women navigating loneliness and love in a metropolis that is gaining viewers and earning international recognition.
All We Imagine as Light, a multi-language film set in Mumbai, the country’s financial capital, has won several international awards this year, including the Grand Prix at Cannes.
It is also the first Indian film to be nominated in the best director category at the Golden Globes, which will be presented on January 5, as well as in the best picture category for non-English movies.
For director Payal Kapadia, the response to her debut film in her home country is an added bonus to the accolades it has earned abroad.


“It’s very difficult for independent films to get screens in India. I am very happy with the response. Now I want to show the film in places in the country where it has not been shown so far, the smaller cities,” Kapadia said in an interview.
Independent, art-house films do not find too many takers in India, where audiences are raised on a staple diet of Bollywood and other mainstream films full of song-and-dance routines, violence and melodrama, although more serious content on streaming platforms is slowly changing tastes.
With more than US$2 million in box office sales globally, All We Imagine as Light has also been nominated for Academy Awards for best picture, best director and best original screenplay, said a representative from Sideshow and Janus Films, which own the distribution rights in the United States.
It is not, however, India’s official submission in the best foreign film category at the Oscars.
Kapadia, 38, said she thought of the idea of the film in a hospital waiting room. Initially conceived as a short film, it took eight years to make.

Former US president Barack Obama picked it as one of his favourite films of the year, in a list he shared on social media.
The story revolves around the friendship and love lives of three immigrant women who live and work in Mumbai, a congested metropolis of more than 12 million people and an important leitmotif in her film.
“Mumbai is a city of many contradictions. While life can be tough here, it gives people a sense of freedom as well. We tried capturing that in the film too,” Kapadia said.


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Director Payal Kapadia thought of the idea of All We Imagine as Light in a hospital waiting room. Photo: Reuters

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Film & TV

Golden Globes and Oscar nominee All We Imagine as Light has shown an Indian art-house film can challenge Bollywood’s dominance of cinemas


Golden Globes and Oscar nominee All We Imagine as Light has shown an Indian art-house film can challenge Bollywood’s dominance of cinemas.


Asian cinema: Bollywood

India

Academy Awards

Director of All We Imagine as Light on film’s positive reception in Bollywood-mad India

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Golden Globes and Oscar nominee All We Imagine as Light has shown an Indian art-house film can challenge Bollywood’s dominance of cinemas

Golden Globes and Oscar nominee All We Imagine as Light has shown an Indian art-house film can challenge Bollywood’s dominance of cinemas