In this exclusive interview with IANS, director Payal Kapadia and actor Rana Daggubati discuss All We Imagine As Light, an evocative film that explores the complexities of human emotions and relationships under challenging circumstances. The film stars Rana Daggubati alongside an impressive ensemble cast, bringing Kapadia's vision to life. Set for release on 22 November 2024, the film promises a compelling narrative that dives into the intricacies of light and dark within human connections.
#allweimagineaslight #indiancinema #indianaudience #mumbai #commercialfilm #drama #human
#allweimagineaslight #indiancinema #indianaudience #mumbai #commercialfilm #drama #human
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FunTranscript
00:00Actually, the germ of the film was that I wanted to make a film about women's friendship
00:09across generations and I was searching for like the right place to place the film and
00:16I am from Mumbai so I definitely would have been in the backdrop but at one point I was
00:21spending a lot of time in hospitals due to some personal reasons and I felt that hospital
00:26is a space where women are very much in the workforce and it's a very tough job like
00:35you have to be very unemotional as a nurse you know like you can never see what's going on in my mind
00:42so I think for the themes which I wanted to explore for that reason the hospital space, the nursing
00:49profession it all something in my mind I felt that this makes sense and through the hospital
00:55I was able to talk about other things like contraception and you know bodies of women
01:00and all these things so that was an extra thing that I got.
01:09See, one it was a beautifully made film. See, any film that can cut across and give you emotions in a place
01:17that you don't know you never it's so I'm saying a hospital is so common to all our lives but
01:23just to know that in a little more detail is shakes you all up and the fact that this cinema
01:30does that so beautifully and it's a slice of life that India should know that this is
01:35what living in Mumbai means, this is what living a life that's so hard yet so normal
01:42and like in the hospital setting where you have to like nurses are very straight, their whole
01:49life is about not showing emotions to the people they're around and yeah I think all of that
01:56comes together and the fact that it's put packaged beautifully in like a coming-of-age type of story.
02:02So to me that narrative was very new, very beautiful and we've been trying to push cinema
02:09like this in the regional world for a while but the fact that Paya didn't care about region or
02:15language is what I was so excited about. She used native Malayali people to speak Malayalam
02:21to write it so beautifully, set it in Bombay, there's enough Hindi. It just feels like a film
02:26for everybody. So I think and that's something that took me by surprise and
02:32then yeah that's it then we got on board, that's how we were happy, Paya was happy with us.
02:37She had a whole set of distributors from the globe that was coming.
02:42Actually, it's out now in over 50 countries and start releasing one after the other
02:49and that's pretty phenomenal.
02:56I am a big fan of darkness because I think that darkness gives us the ability to project our own
03:02thoughts and feelings into it. It's very open darkness. So I wanted to work or you know in
03:08today's image making like whatever images we see especially advertisement and everything is very
03:14bright. So I wanted to go back to some of that darkness also because life is both bright and
03:21without darkness there can't be light, without light there can't be darkness. That was the hope
03:25so I'm happy to hear you say that or some other thing is that like the film is about people who
03:32go to work every day in a city like Mumbai and Mumbai is a city as you know that never
03:38rests, it's very fast-paced. So half your time which is in the daytime most of it goes in
03:44traveling in the train, working for eight, nine hours and traveling back. So the only time that
03:49is your own are the nights. Reclaiming the nights was important to me.
03:56See one is I have to be, I have to tell you it was like it took me about 40 minutes to
04:05realize it's actually a film and it's not real because I was so engrossed in the way the story
04:11was told in the way the actors performed. All of that just was too perfect for me to
04:18see and I think see every filmmaker uses a certain effect to get closer to the audience
04:24it doesn't matter bright, dark. That story will give you a certain reason to say it a certain
04:29manner and I think what Pyle's used is like as good as what any other filmmaker would have
04:36used to tell a story like this. So it uses the function very clearly and whether it's
04:42the same for me like it did to you and that's it, then you know it works and finally cinema
04:48is something that you want to be immersed in. You want to see something that you've
04:52never seen or experienced people or feelings that you've never felt before and that's
04:57what cinema means and I feel like it sticks off all of those boxes.
05:05I really like the cinema has the ability to you know it's a great medium. We can do so
05:12much, it's so liberating cinema you know there's no restriction, you can have such crazy fun.
05:18So I really like that dialogues are coming from somewhere, put the seed on something else because
05:24I feel that that gives like that is also editing. That thing gives the audience also a different
05:30way to see the same thing. And it adds a lot of depth also. It just makes your mind wonder
05:37I really like this kind of thing. So that particular shot you're talking about, thanks for noticing it
05:42was one of my favorite shots in the film. Like I felt like that's the first time it's like
05:47she's letting down her guard.
06:12I was thinking of the sari like that, that it's lying over there and also
06:22the second very simple thing is also that in Mumbai monsoons you can't dry your clothes.
06:28So even your apartment suddenly changes and so that was again that's a more
06:34functional thing but more it was this thing of she's shedding her inhibitions and opening up
06:39for the first time but thanks for noticing that I really thought a lot about it.