Hirokazu Kore-eda admitted that he wanted to have an in-depth conversation with Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia after watching her film Everything we imagine is light This year’s Cannes Film Festival. On Tuesday, the Japanese director finally got the chance to take part in the TIFF Lounge intimate talk series held at the luxurious Lexus Café during the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Everything we imagine is light The documentary is Kapadia’s second feature film, following its 2021 premiere night of ignorance. Her second film caused an international critical sensation and was the first Indian film in Cannes’ main competition in 30 years. The film eventually won the Grand Prix at the French Film Festival, the second most prestigious award. In recent weeks, Everything we imagine is light Once again in the news, the film is widely expected to be India’s contender for the 2025 Academy Award for Best International Film. Things take a shocking turn, Kiran Rao Ms. Lapata The film was selected by the Film Federation of India, a move that sparked a backlash in the country.
Kore-eda, who sits on the Cannes Film Festival’s main competition jury this year, began his speech on Tuesday by acknowledging that he could not reveal the jury’s deliberations or how he voted due to a strict confidentiality agreement. But he admitted with a wry smile that since Cannes he was looking forward to talking to Kapadia and learning more about her work and process. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation between Hiroshi Eda and Kapadia, along with a selection of questions and answers from the audience.
KOREED: How was the Cannes Film Festival for you?
Kapadia: We didn’t expect the film to be in competition. This is a movie I’ve been making for many years, [and the feeling of being in Cannes] Very new to me. So happy to see this movie [in competition] Along with a lot of filmmakers I watched in film school. These are my directors [studied] Myself, as well as the jury members and others, [who we studied at] Film school. I must admit, I was very nervous. But my whole team is with me, everyone is from India and my actress is here too. You feel better when everyone is together. That’s why it’s a good feeling.
“Everything we imagine is light”
cannes film festival
KOREEDA: In your own words, what can you tell us? Everything we imagine is light is it about?
Kapadia: The film tells the story of two women from the southern state of Kerala who live and work in Mumbai. They were roommates, but I wouldn’t really call them friends, you know, because sometimes you become roommates by accident, people who want their history, and then someone comes and stays. So it’s like a casual friendship between two people who are slightly different ages. Prabha is almost 40 years old and Anu is around 25 years old. The movie is about each of them being in an impossible love situation, not with each other, but with two different people. This is a movie about friendship and finding your family. You know, in India, family is a complex entity. this is a thing [that can be] Also supportive, but sometimes frustrating. This movie is about the family you build when you leave your own family behind.
KOREEDA: I loved it when you showed the film in Cannes. The characters’ situations are quite grim, and the storytelling is calm and not too loud. In a way you express sympathy for the characters, which really stands out among the competition in Cannes. There are a lot of very loud movies. Your film has the best ability to convey your message. In all three of your films, the voices and voices of the characters are very important.
Kapadia: For me, sound is the effect of cinema on my body. we don’t need to be loud [in films]……I like [give that] It feels like someone is talking in your ear, sitting gently next to you, not far from you. That’s what I love about film, you can have a long shot, a really wide shot, but the sound can still be intimate, and in cinema we can do that. That’s something I really love about movies, even in big shots, sound can create intimacy and bring you very close to the character, even if we’re far apart. Sometimes I think I don’t want to get too close to the character physically, and I find myself a little further away. But I don’t feel that way about the sound. I feel very close and listen to it very gently. [with the talking]. I think that’s what we get to do in the movie, and that’s the fun of making movies, that’s the fun of us having these choices – and I love that so much.
“Everything we imagine is light”
little chaos
KOREEDA: I think you have a strong philosophy behind your films, can you talk about that?
Kapadia: I like to do films that are not too big… because I think there is a lot of drama in daily life and we don’t need to focus too much on the outside. [These are the] My type of story. When we were students at film school, we read some Japanese short stories by Kawabata Yasunari. One of my teachers told us this story palm story Coming from Yasunari Kawabata, that’s just a one-page story. I really like the way he writes. It looks very simple, like everyday life, but covers a lot of things in just 3-4 paragraphs, from history, past dreams, reality, anxiety, happiness. I felt so liberating reading these very short stories, thinking that you can actually say a lot with very little. this process [is] very painful [way for] My teacher introduced me to pieces like this, which were equally deceptively simple but whose juxtaposition created many layers. I don’t know if this answers your question, but that’s how I like to think about things.
Audience Question: Your film is widely expected to be India’s Oscar contender this year. If it gets picked, I think it has a good chance of being nominated. So I’m wondering what your thoughts are on why this movie wasn’t picked up?
Kapadia: Thank you for your question. I think this movie has gained a lot. I’m very happy with the journey of this movie. This really exceeded my expectations. So it just happened naturally, which was like a bonus to me.
“Night of No Knowledge”
Provided by TIFF
Audience question: What was the most touching thing when watching this movie? [confused] I was confused because there were so many languages in the movie but you couldn’t tell because we didn’t know all the different languages. When I heard this movie was released [languages] Color coded. How many languages are there?
KAPADIA: I don’t know, India is a country with 26 official languages or over 20 languages like that. Everyone speaks a different language. We are a multilingual country and Mumbai is a city where you hear many languages. So part of our culture is that we don’t speak each other’s language and then we all have to speak another language to understand each other. This was an experience I had in Mumbai where I felt I needed to talk about the multilingual quality of this city. I love the diversity of languages in our country and the desire to achieve it [one language] Doesn’t quite work for me. So, in the film, I also wanted to use multiple languages to really represent that diversity. [We have] Malay, Hindi, Marathi are the main languages but at the beginning you will hear the documentary sounds which are in Gujarati… If you travel by train in Mumbai you will hear all these language.
I’m very interested in my relationship with language because if you move to a big city and don’t speak the language, it can increase the feeling of distance and create a sense of alienation in conversation, and the movie is about that. Therefore, all the characters in the film who cannot speak Hindi become a kind of distance. [a feeling of] Not connected to this location. But language is also a way that we create privacy, and I think you and I can speak language and we’re in a public space and then we can say the most intimate things and no one will understand.
But there’s also the issue of cities and languages that I love. So with all my friends, I have a lot of languages. I just need to find a better way to subtitle. I’m trying to figure it out.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
