Cannes 2025: Payal Kapadia on Being Part of the Festival Jury and Exploring 'Mumbai's Past' In Her Next Film

Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia made waves at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024, winning the Grand Prix Award for her stunning Mumbai film All We Imagine As Light. A year later, the filmmaker has joined the prestigious jury at the 2025 edition of the international festival, alongside the likes of Juliette Binoche, Jeremy Strong and Halle Berry. 

The filmmaker tells The Hollywood Reporter India that she feels privileged doing her work. “The learning has been to take nothing for granted. You have to continue to just work,” she says, speaking about AWIAL’s international recognition. The film also got an Indian theatrical release in November last year. “In India, we have different kinds of films. I learnt that this time, with so many people having watched the movie in the theatre. What I like to do is to put a little stone in the placid water and see how wide the ripple flows. Our audiences are very open,” she says.

It is this quality that also makes the Indian film audience unique, she believes. “We have films from the south or Marathi films, or the Assamese film industry. There is also a place for films that are more formalistic with no stars. We have so many different things to choose from, and as an audience, we should feel lucky in India.”

The negotiation between driving people to the theatres and still making a film as an uncompromising artiste is persistent, she notes. “There are compromises you make to negotiate the fact that you want it to be seen. But as long as it doesn’t take away something from the vision of the film, it’s okay, we can make something,” she says. But compromises are an essential part of filmmaking. “On the first day of our shoot (of AWIAL), our main location was cancelled. You change your thoughts and decide where you want to shoot. At every step, you’re trying to navigate the reality of reality.”

The filmmaker also speaks about the nuances of being part of the jury that oversees a competition. “In an ideal world, we should not be comparing movies because everyone’s coming from a different cultural context and gaze. But at the end of the day, it is a film festival that has this history of recognising certain films to live a long life. One has to find the best way to be okay with it,” she says. 

Mumbai continues to be a prominent character in her next project too. “They are about complicated relationships. I’m digging deeper into the past of Mumbai. Our city is going through a geographical change with the sea link and land reclamation. How do we navigate the gentrification of areas, and how the city is physically changing so much. It (the city) is still a preoccupation. Maybe after my second film, I will think this is too much and do something else,” she adds with a laugh.