All We Imagine As Light is a story of chaos, change, and love from both sides, set against the gloriously grungy megacity Mumbai. Every frame is packed to the brim with buildings, crowds, movement, a myriad of lives and stories all happening atop one another. Somehow, writer-director Payal Kapadia has woven this all into a deep and moving tapestry. The director’s talents, extensively honed in a host of prior documentaries, takes the voyeuristic approach to watching housemates Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) experience troubles and triumphs. By seeking the quietly vulnerable moments, the furtive glances and secret affections the film’s story is told largely without the need for words.

As such, the cost of entry is attentive investment. You get out what you put in, and keeping your eyes peeled pays dividends in understanding the true feelings (and backstories) of the protagonists. This kind of subtlety is a thing not often seen in romance films. Then again, once the audience begins to engage with the film on the right wavelength, it becomes clear that All We Imagine As Light largely escapes both genre and definition. Perhaps this is what all the global fuss is about, or maybe it’s the core tender yearning which seems to run all the way through. Scene after scene, this film tells its tale with terse melancholic restraint.

Throughout the film, glimmers of light flicker in the characters’ eyes and sweat. It is mysteriously beautiful, and remarkably similar to the gold veins that run through cave sculptures encountered in the third act. Is this merely a trick of the light? Or the subtle flourish of an important new voice on the international film scene?

To get to the bottom of this mystery, I sat down with the film’s writer/director, Payal Kapardia. She was warm, open, and as sharply critical as one could expect from an experienced, rising talent.

Flynn Le Cornu: In other interviews, you’ve summarised the central conflict of All We Imagine… as being two women’s relationship to their desires. Having dealt mostly in documentary, why was this story best told through the fictional medium?

Kapadia: You know, I love mixing fiction and non-fiction. Actually, when I went to a film school, we studied both fiction and non-fiction. So, it was a script that I had wanted to do as my final year student project, as a 20-minute film. But then I realized it had to be longer, so I came back to it when I had this opportunity. It was an idea that was always in my head while I was doing non-fiction. My previous documentary also had a lot of fiction…so, it was an extension of that, to take the fiction path forward.

It works so well. There are these moments when all the crowds are walking through the train station, you hear people speaking. Are those real clips from interviews with real people, like documentary, or are they dialogue that you'd written separately?

Kapadia: Those scenes were not in the script when I started making the movie. It was when I was doing the research for the script that I was meeting a lot of people. A lot of women…people from Mumbai… just chatting. I love to chat, so I was chatting a lot. (That also comes from my background in non-fiction work.) A lot of it wasn’t recorded because it would just be somebody that I met on a location scout or befriended on a train. I would always jot it down. When I figured out that I wanted to put this little documentary piece in the beginning of the movie, I went back to all that research, but now I had to find a way to record it. I did it a bit like a game. I would go to people and say, ‘How was your first experience coming to Mumbai?’ And then they’d tell me their story, prompted by my prior research, but this time I was recording…kind of directing a bit, saying, ‘Please, can you be more precise?’... ‘Can you say this in one line?’ Directed ideas, collected from everywhere.

You mentioned in another interview about doing lots of location scouting and filming, specifically avoiding tourist locations. Were there benefits to finding more liminal spaces within Mumbai and the night time setting, beyond the gorgeous lighting?

Kapadia: The only free time Prabha and Anu really have is when they get off after work. I wanted to explore the city through their eyes. Prabha is not the kind of character who's going to roam about, but when you are in the start of romance and dating, like Anu, loitering is an important part of life, so we wanted to focus on the free time that she has to explore the city. Loitering is something that I love. And I feel we don't loiter enough.

Did you find that you were running into any challenges with shooting/loitering during that time or was it an easy shoot?  

Kapadia: It’s never easy to shoot in Mumbai. It’s a very, very, cinema city. Very expensive. A lot of the permits cost a lot, and our movie didn't have the budget of a super studio film, so we did run into that kind of trouble. At one point we decided that we can't recreate the market as it is. That would require 10,000 people and a lot of imagination, which I feel I don't have. (laughs) Reality is way more interesting than cinema. So, we decided that we’d shoot it like a documentary, with a very small camera. With a Canon DSLR, people feel like, ‘Oh, we can't use this for a big movie’, but my, my DOP is very relaxed about such things. It was more important to get the authenticity of the city than worry about the quality of the camera. You know, you lose something out about the texture and feeling when you set it all up. It was just four of us, one production assistant, and the two actors walking around Marathahalli Road. The DOP and I, hiding, well, not hiding, but just sort of pretending we were making a YouTube reel for some food channel. Then, in the middle we would stop and eat, because it’s really good there.

Something that’s definitely so noticeable, that word that you used, “texture” certainly comes across. There’s such a distinct aesthetic and feeling to Mumbai. Obviously because you're shooting on location. For such a localized film, All We Imagine Is Light has made waves worldwide. You've received the Cannes Award, and there's so much buzz about the film.

Why do you think the film has such a universal appeal?

Kapadia: I'm not really sure, but though it's set in Mumbai, a lot of themes are really about big city life - both the alienation as well as the connection you feel in cities with such a diverse population. People don't speak the same languages. People come from different cultural experiences. Cities give us random connections and people connected to that all over the world. I think there is something universal in those connections.

All We Imagine as Light had an interesting, dual-sided representation of love and loneliness. Prabha and Anu seem to hold different attitudes to the challenges they face.

What inspired the way you depict relationships in this story? Was there a central philosophy to the way you depicted relationships in this story? Were you influenced by stories that you've seen before, or was it something you've seen in the world around you?

Kapadia: Yeah, it was many things. Like I said, I started writing it when I was a student. That was many years ago, so I was closer to Anu's age. I was seeing the older nurse from her eyes. But as many years passed, I got closer to the age of the older nurse, Prabha. And now, you know, she and I are both the same age. So, I went through that entire generational change and found my empathy changing as I grew older. Somewhere, both the characters are within me, as the conflict that I have had with my own morality. I would like to present how, I, as a woman, like to present myself in the world. How we and other young women at that age have looked at older women and the choices they made. Also, on the other side of that, show how I now look at the younger generation and am sometimes baffled, sometimes envious. There’s such a great sort of change that's taken place with how younger women see themselves. I think I have a little bit of admiration and envy; kind of like Prabha has for Anu. It's all these mixed feelings that I'm always trying to both fight and overcome and try to be better in.Maybe it’s a bit of a cheesy thing to say, but we’re all trying our best, you know?

You mention this new attitude in the youth, maybe a cultural change. Do you feel as though the city is also structurally changing itself as well?

Kapadia: That is the contradiction of urbanization and it's everywhere, all over the world. The gentrification happens and it is the people who don't have the means who get thrown out first. It’s really unfortunate but the history of all cities have these stories. Unfortunately, that's how the world is designed. Even Mumbai, which is constantly in a state of flux because it's such a small strip of land. There's a lot of pressure to expand, but where? So, right now, it's going through a geographical change because land reclamation is underway as well. ‘What can you do? There's no space for you.’ Suddenly that space, which used to be occupied by certain people has become prime property. Mumbai can be very violent in its gentrification, very reckless with how people are treated - Very inhumane. I wanted to highlight that aspect of Mumbai because it enrages me and it's never going to stop, unfortunately.

So what’s next? I heard that you were working on another film already, and it's another drama-documentary. Is it going in the same direction, or is it a new idea?

Kapadia: It’s also a film about Mumbai. I’m trying to make a triptych; three different stories of Mumbai. One you already saw in All We Imagine As Light, and then the other two are what I'm working on now. What we spoke about today in this conversation is a really strong part of the next movie. Namely, the flux that the city is in both geographically and in terms of the people who live there. So that's in a very early stage, but, you know, you have to keep working.

The last question I have is about the rice cooker. It feels like a loaded symbol. What made you settle on that appliance specifically?

Kapadia: The rice cooker is something that is just glamorous enough. It's just supposed to give you more time in your life. And rice is something that's very common. The cooker is also an homage to all of cinematic representations of rice cookers because in the history of cinema, they’ve always been about family. It’s also mostly represented a way for the woman to be a better mother, or a better provider. The symbol is a great mix of capitalism and “Women’s Desires” that are so fed to us all the time through advertising. It’s a very humble kitchen appliance, which actually doesn't do all that much, becoming a kind of sensual piece of machinery that brings out her desires.

Our conversation was a total pleasure, and shed light on all the layered work that I’d expected had gone into the film. Clearly, All We Imagine As Light is a long-time-coming labour of love and the exciting beginning of a triage that stands to illuminate Mumbai on the silver screen as it’s never been seen before.

All We Imagine As Light is screening as part of the Lotterywest Perth Festival, which started on the 25th of November and will run until the 6th of April! Check out its full program here. If anything you read here sounds like it might be up your alley, do yourself a favour and get down to a showing before the 2nd of Feb!