Kolkata: Filmmaker Payal Kapadia is the first Indian director to be nominated for the Best Director (Motion Picture) category at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards for her film, ‘All We Imagine As Light' (AWIAL).
The movie, which features Kolkata's Ranabir Das as cinematographer and Topshe as music director, has also garnered a nomination for Best Motion Picture — (non-English language). Prior to this recognition, director Bauddhayan Mukherji presented the film in Kolkata to Kapadia's FTII professor and fellow practitioners.
Reacting to the Golden Globe nominations while it was not selected as India's official entry for the Academy Awards in the International Feature Film category, Ranabir told TOI from Egypt, "We are grateful for the journey the film has taken and is continuing to take. When we set out making it, we really could not have asked for more. This is a huge honour for us. To see the reaction of people, the support for the film is very encouraging."
Topshe told TOI, "We are delighted with the recognition and nomination. This might be the first such nomination for a film by an Indian director but I hope many more films get the opportunity to be showcased on the international stage."
Putul Mahmood, faculty of Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, said, "What struck me most about AWIAL is how it visually imprints itself on your mind and how it transforms real spaces into mind spaces. It's certainly unusual in the context of the contemporary cinema-scape. By flying so high with this film, Payal has broken through many glass ceilings that up until now seemed unimaginable."
Whilst many are overwhelmed, a contingent of intellectuals who attended the special screening in Kolkata remained unimpressed, labelling it a ‘pretentiously lyrical' cinema ‘crafted to captivate Westerners' and deemed it ‘devoid of originality'. Will the nominations quell detractors who dismissed its Cannes triumph as merely a consequence of securing 12 international co-producers?
"Film viewing is extremely subjective. But nothing can take away from the achievements of AWIAL. First Golden Globe nomination for an Indian director is both magical and inspiring," Mukherji said. "I will be critical though I am proudly going to celebrate the film's achievement. Payal is my student and a dear friend. At the Kolkata screening, she mentioned only my name. Yet, I must point out that Western producers supporting our movies have a big say about film aesthetics. For them, a film from India has to be inspirational but can't be complex. It has to stick to social realism and have a magic realism treatment at the end. Payal is immersed in deep urban folk narratives and I would have liked to see more of that in AWIAL," said Kapadia's FTII teacher Anirban Datta.
Countering criticisms, director Sohini Dasgupta said she is ‘proud' of the film and characterised it as an exemplary illustration of a work with a ‘feminine gaze'. "I loved the idea of utilising magic realism organically. Kolkata must recognise that every independent director endeavours to secure grants, but the one who ultimately succeeds is not mediocre."