Questioning society: India’s Payal Kapadia talks filmmaking with Hirokazu Kore-eda at TIFF

TOKYO — Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia emphasized that moviemaking is about continually questioning society as she joined a recent conversation on her award-winning film “All We Imagine as Light” with Japanese film director Hirokazu Kore-eda at the Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF).

The film, Kapadia’s second full length feature, won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where Kore-eda served as a jury member. It is scheduled for release in Japan in July 2025.

“All We Imagine as Light” depicts two women, both in “impossible love situations” with two different people, who become roommates in Mumbai, India. Kapadia said the theme was friendship and about finding “a family” after going away from home.

“In India, a family is a complicated entity,” she said, “It’s something that can be supportive but also can be bringing you down sometimes.” She explained that a lot of inequalities exist in society regarding class, religion and gender, and such identities become a “big divider” of people. For example, some women are controlled in their choice of a life partner. Kapadia said it was good to raise questions about these issues. “We have to continue to ask these questions, continue to express these feelings that we have about society. That’s our job.”

Kapadia was invited to Tokyo by Kore-eda, and the talk event was held on the evening of Oct. 29.

The Japanese filmmaker said he had fallen in love with the film when it was screened at the Cannes Film Festival. “The situations in which the characters find themselves are harsh, but the narrative is gentle and does not rise in volume. At the Cannes Film Festival, many films were about fighting to overcome serious circumstances, or were loud in voice, but this piece had the strongest power to speak to the audience,” he said.

Kapadia revealed she was influenced by the short stories of Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, which she had read when in film school in India. She was inspired by how a large amount of information was infused in the concise expressions depicting everyday life. She was amazed that the stories were “deceptively simple,” but at the same time, covered a wide range of matters such as “history, past dreams, realities, anxieties, happiness” within a few paragraphs.

India has more than 20 official languages, and a variety of them appear in the film. Kapadia explained that not being able to understand each other’s words is part of the culture and referred to the difficulty of making subtitles.

The event was an installment of the TIFF Lounge series of talks among filmmakers, co-sponsored by TIFF and the Japan Foundation. Other talks, including between directors Nia Dinata and Yukiko Mishima, are scheduled until Nov. 3. All of them will be streamed on the festival’s YouTube channel.

(By Yuko Murase, The Mainichi Staff Writer)