Payal Kapadia Reveals Plans for Two New Films 'After All We Imagine as Light'

After a remarkable year of accolades, Payal Kapadia is finally ready to look ahead. Her Mumbai-set drama All We Imagine as Light not only won the Grand Prix at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival but also earned a Golden Globe nomination, became embroiled in an Oscars controversy, and opened theatrically in over 50 countries — an extraordinary feat for an independent Indian film. Most recently, it capped its awards run with a best picture win at the 18th Asia Film Awards in Hong Kong on March 16.

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Now, the filmmaker is setting her sights on her next projects. “I have two new films in mind,” Kapadia told The Hollywood Reporter in Hong Kong before the AFAs. “Together with All We Imagine as Light, they will form like a triptych. Not a trilogy, because that would imply that they are a connected story. They will be different pieces, all set in Mumbai.”

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A former documentary filmmaker, Kapadia's approach is deeply rooted in observational realism, a style that shaped All We Imagine as Light. The film wove together the lives of three working women in Mumbai, capturing the city’s energy. Her upcoming films, she suggests, will continue in this poetic, naturalistic style. “For All We Imagine as Light, I would shoot a lot of footage with a little camera while writing the script,” she explains. “I use the camera as I’m doing my research, and that shapes the form and what comes into the film.”

Though she refrains from revealing story specifics, Kapadia says her next films will again center on women navigating life in Mumbai. “I’m always interested in Mumbai as a space that accepts people from all over the country — especially from a woman’s point of view,” she says. “It’s not always easy for a woman to live alone in many parts of India. But in some cities, like Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, and Kolkata, it is possible. So the next movie will again be about working women from different parts of the country and their experiences in the city.”

All We Imagine as Light employed an evocative soundtrack, and Kapadia hopes to push that further in her next films. “I want to use music more narratively — where it’s not just enhancing the mise-en-scène but has a function in the story itself,” she shares. “In Indian cinema, we love our songs, and I want to find a way to incorporate that musicality more than I did before.”

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“I’m pretty stubborn,” she says with a laugh. “I prefer to stay true to the core of a film than to make concessions to some external forces. I will try my best to stick to that.”