‘I’m making Golden Globes history – but I’m scared of India’s reaction to my movie
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Filmmaker Payal Kapadia has made history as the first Indian director to secure a Golden Globe nomination with her stirring drama – All We Imagine As Light. The feature film set in Mumbai boasts a stunning 100% Rotten Tomatoes score and has been described by critics as ‘lyrical’, ‘quietly resonant’, and ‘beautiful’, making it a surprise breakout in this year’s awards race.
![[Payal Kapadia]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_231528763-8c01-e1735404232828.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
It follows three intertwined working-class women in India’s bustling metropolitan. Nurse Prahba (Kani Kusruti) is struggling to accept her estranged husband’s life in Germany, her roommate Anu (Divya Prabha) must hide her relationship with a Muslim, and Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) is being wrongfully evicted from her home.
![[Kani Kusruti, left, and Divya Prabha]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_232593770-7d70.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
This meaty odyssey, a story of two halves, is pushing the boundaries on socio-political issues discussed in Indian cinema and catapulting the conversation onto the global stage. ‘I wanted to propose utopian togetherness in a world where we are so divided and things are just so complicated and unnecessary,’ Payal told Metro in a conversation after her trailblazing nomination.
![[Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, left, and producer Thomas Hakim]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_231760913-ba2b.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
And it wasn’t even a second thought to focus on female friendship. ‘One thing that keeps coming up in interviews is “why did you want to make a film about female friendship” which is a bit weird for me. ‘I feel like men have been making films about themselves being friends forever and now because women are making more it happens to be about friendship. It’s not a whole new thing, somebody just passed the mic.’.
