Payal Kapadia praises Malayalam cinema at Cannes: ‘Even art house films get distribution in Kerala’

Director Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light became the first Indian film recently to win the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival. After receiving the award she, along with the film’s cast Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam, took part in a press conference where she praised the Malayalam film industry stating that even “art house films get distribution in Kerala.”

“Everything is changing and even what Bollywood is, is changing all the time. Especially cinema from Kerala; there is an immense range of films being made. Even arthouse films get distribution in Kerala, which doesn’t happen in the rest of the country. The audience in Kerala is really open to watching different kinds of films,” Payal said.

Kani, the film’s lead, added, “The government of Kerala really supports female filmmakers. There was a grant for that, and at least they are trying within the capacity that we have. As Payal rightly said, mainstream cinema is watched by everyone, and if there is an independent, contemporary, or slightly experimental film, there are people to watch those too.”

All We Imagine as Light is the first Indian film after 30 years of Shaji N. Karun's Swaham (1994) and is also the first ever by an Indian woman filmmaker to find a spot in the official Competition section of the Cannes Film Festival.

Our review of the film read: “Kapadia’s film might be about emotions that often border on the fractious, but her narrative is quiet, limpid, and luminous, one dulcet moment mellifluously flowing into another, with silence doing most of the talking."