Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, the first from the country to win the Cannes Grand Prix for her debut feature All We Imagine As Light (AWIAL), will be honoured with the Spirit of Cinema Award at the 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK). The award, which carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh and a memento, will be presented by Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan during the closing ceremony on December 20 at the Nishagandhi Auditorium in Thiruvananthapuram.

The Malayalam-Hindi bilingual, starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, and Chhaya Kadam, follows three women in Mumbai as they face personal and social struggles. Born in Mumbai in 1986, Payal is an alumnus of St Xavier’s College and the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. Her docu-feature A Night of Knowing Nothing, rooted in the FTII student protests, won the Golden Eye at Cannes 2021. She first gained international acclaim when her short film Afternoon Clouds was selected for competition at Cannes.

The Spirit of Cinema Award, introduced at IFFK in 2021, honours filmmakers who use cinema as a tool of resistance. Previous recipients include Kurdish filmmaker Lisa Calan and Kenyan director Wanuri Kahiu.