All we Imagine as good films and great films in media these is not at all that, is what this young lady Payal Kpadia’s film “ All we Imagine Light” which won the 2nd best film-Grand Prix- in the Olympics of global films, Cannes film festival reveals. Once again like during the times of “ New Wave “ of Indian films in the 1970s and 1980s the yard stick in judging the film is going to be its artistic merit , not its box office collection or tis star value, going by the build Payal’s Grand Prix has created.
In the good old tradition one can says that it is made for the art-house film people, but the fact that no one can ignore the Silver medalist in an Olympics also applies here. May be it is the debut film of Ms Kapadia, but it is a film about Mumbai and the immigrant women labour in that with Malayalam and Hindi as its languages also point out to multi cultural pan Indian film language emerging in India. With 22 official languages and more dialects, India needs multi-cultural –multi-language films, which at least the OTT platforms have realized, when they dub their films into various languages. But when it is conceived and made as multi-cultural films with a pan Indian view, the genre of filmmaking itself becomes refreshingly different.
“All We Imagine as Light” is a delicate triple portrait of women who have devoted their lives to helping others, but have received precious little in return in terms of money, status or freedom. Things would be different if they were men: the film’s feminist theme is established in the amusing introductory scenes, in which an elderly patient complains to Prabha that the ghost of her late husband keeps bothering her when she’s trying to watch television, and Anu slips a bottle of contraceptive pills to a 25-year-old woman who already has three children.
But Kapadia doesn’t resort to polemic, nor does she try to force the narrative into tragedy or farce. In her clear, lyrical way, she simply tells the bittersweet stories of three friends who want nothing more than to be allowed to carry on as they are. All We Imagine as Light is specific in its detailing of life as a woman in today’s Mumbai, but this Indian-French co-production also has the feel of an American or European indie comedy-drama. It is universal and emotional enough to hypnotise anyone who has been alone in a city, or been spellbound by a film on the subject”, wrote BBC ‘s film critic Nicholas Barber after the film’s preview at the Cannes film festival last week.
By the weekend debutant FTII-trained filmmaker Payal Kapadia was raised to the level of iconic Satyajit Ray, when she was awarded the Grand Prix, at the 77th edition of the revered French Riviera festival. Interestingly she is facing a case filed by the Director of FTII for participating in a strike at the campus in 2015, when a third-grade actor was made the prestigious Institute’s Governing Council Chairman. Payal is to present herself at a Pune trial court in June.
That being the situation, the Focus is clearly on the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune established in 1960, as part of the Nehruvian dream of creating an Indian Idiom in films. FTII incidentally was the first Asian institute of its kind and was modeled on its French and Moscow counterparts. The FTII was formed as part of a series of institutions to nourish new Indian films. The other institutions included the Film Finance Corporation(FFC), the Children’s Film Society of India, the Directorate of Film festivals of India, the National Film Archive and the Federation of Film Societies of India. Such a planned activity was recommended by a Parliamentary Committee headed by SK Patil in 1952 and had the involvement of stalwarts like Mari Seton of the British Film Institute and Jean Bhownagary of UNESCO, who was also the head of the Films Division.
Looking back, these institutions supported each other to give a new direction to Indian films, which now have been honoured at the most prestigious film festival in the Universe, Cannes. FTII early graduates were financed by FFC and most of these productions went on to make the “Indian new wave” by the 1970s, which was celebrated by the Film Societies across the country. Most of these films also went abroad and began to get noticed in international film festivals, giving Indian films a new place along with the world’s best. FTII graduates like Payal need no introduction, as her illustrious seniors have carried the torch of her Institute to the global arena over the years.
It may be a coincidence Payal Kapadia, a graduate of FTII was honoured in a weekend falling on the 60th death anniversary of the visionary Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on May 27th. It may be also equally ironic that the present regime at the Centre has amalgamated most of the Nehruvian filmy institutions into a corporation and stopped short of privatising FTII recently.
A senior FTII cinematographer said during one of the student strike negotiation meetings in the early 2000s, the then Information and Broadcasting Minister had wondered what the contribution of the Institute over the years was, but went quiet when pressed whether he was serious about such a statement . With Payal Kapadia, an FTII graduate director, bagging the Grand Prix, henceforth no Minister or bureaucrat at the Information and Broadcasting Ministry will even dream of asking such a question.
Payal’s film also heralds a new trend in Indian filmmaking with its multi-cultural, multi-lingual approach. If released across the centres in India, one is sure that will show up a new avenue for filmmakers across India to access audiences across India. Already regional films are being dubbed and even subtitled to be shown in multiplexes in urban centres and also on OTT platforms, taking the reach of films and audience exposure to films across India. By mixing multiple languages cultures and characters, Payal has also heralded a new multi-cultural filmy trend in times of threat to the pluralistic cultural fabric of India and the spread of propaganda films.
FTII being the only national film school till the 2000’s and having attracted students from across the country to be amalgamated into a unique film culture had already contributed to drastic changes in the content, narrative and technology of filmmaking over the years in most regional and even Hindi films. It is natural that they also have initiated multi-cultural-linguistic content in Indian films, giving the film culture a new avenue to reach audiences across the country. A Mumbaikar, making a film on Kerala nurses, mixing the lead character’s mother tongue with local languages and ethnicity of the province in an urban context must surely be a Nehruvian dream of Indian idiom in our films. The fact it took 50 years after the death of the dreamer Nehru that too when the present regime is trying to shut all such dreams, can only be a reminder of the decades of nation-building in all sectors, which the Nehruvian generation undertook. “ We never thought Indian films would reach such heights. We undertook all initiatives in the field of films as part of building a new nation”, veteran film policymaker Vijaya Mulay( Akka) said during a conversation.
None of them who initiated the new film culture in India, be it Satyajit Ray, RitwikGhatak, or policymakers like Mari Seton, JeanBownagary, Chidananda Dasgupta and Vijay Mulay were there to rejoice in the Cannes Grand Prix-winning by FTII graduate. All those centenarians have given the film field a legacy where debut filmmakers from India can bag such awards and make India proud. In short Payal Kapadia’s Cannes achievement is a crowning glory for those Nehruvian dreamers who created institutions enabling young filmmakers to discover their inherent best creativity, which now the world has begun to honour.
