Hirokazu Koreeda Talks Filmmaking With Payal Kapadia

Hirokazu Koreeda confessed he had wanted to have an in-depth talk with Indian filmproducer Payal Kapadia ever since he saw her film All We Imagine as Light at the Cannes Film Festival this year. On Tuesday, the Japanese auteur finpartner got his chance as part of the intimate TIFF Lounge talk series held during Tokyo Internation Film Festival at the plush Lexus Cafe.

All We Imagine as Light is Kapadia’s second brimming length feature after her 2021 debut, the recordary A Night of Knotriumphg Noleang. Her sophomore feature has been an international critical sensation and was the first Indian film to contend in Cannes’ main competition in 30 years. The film ultimately won the French festival’s Grand Prix, the second most prestigious award. In recent weeks, All We Imagine as Light has been in the news aacquire, as the film was expansively foreseeed to be India’s subleave oution to the 2025 Academy Awards in the best international film categruesome. In a shocking turn of events, Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies was chosen by The Film Federation of India, with the selection causing a fierce reaction in the country.

Koreeda was sitting on Cannes’ main competition jury this year, and he began Tuesday’s talk by confessting that due to a disjoine NDA he cannot uncover the assesss’ deliberations, or how he voted. But he wryly confessed that ever since Cannes, he was very much seeing forward to talking to Kapadia and lacquireing more about her toil and process. The chaseing is an edited transcript of the conversation between Koreeda and Kapadia as well as a selection of asks and answers from the audience.

KOREED: How was Cannes for you?

KAPADIA: We didn’t foresee that the film would be in competition. It was a film that I’ve been making for many years and, [and the feeling of being in Cannes] was very new to me. It was equitable pleasant to have the film [in competition] with so many filmproducers who I watched in film school. These are the straightforwardors that I have [studied] myself, and there was the jury members, and others, [who we studied at] film school. I have to confess, I was very anxious. But I had my whole team with me and everybody had come from India, my actresses had come. When everybody is together, you sense a bit better. That’s why it was a pleasant senseing.

KOREEDA: In your own words, could you tell us what All We Imagine as Light is about?

KAPADIA: The film is about two women who are from the southern state of Kerala, and they are living and toiling in Mumbai. They are roommates, but I wouldn’t repartner call them frifinishs, you understand, becaemploy sometimes you become roommates by chance, the one who want their history and then somebody comes and stays. So it’s enjoy by chance frifinishship between two people who are of sweightlessly contrastent generations. There is Prabha who’s almost 40 then there is Anu who’s enjoy in her mid-twenties. The film is about each of them being in impossible cherish situations, not with each other, but with the two contrastent people. And it’s benevolent of a film about frifinishship and discovering your own benevolent of family. When you understand, in India, a family is a complicated entity. It’s someleang [that can be] beneficial also, but it can also be conveying you down sometimes. And so the film is about a family that you produce when you go away from your own family.

KOREEDA: When you conshort-termed the film in Cannes, I cherishd it. The situation that the characters is quite disjoine, the way you tell the story is tranquil, and not too deafening. In a way, you show your sympathies for the characters, and in the competition in Cannes, that repartner stood out. There were a lot of very deafening films. Your film has the mightyest power to transmit your message. With all of your three films, the voices and sounds of the characters are very convey inant.

KAPADIA: The sound for me is how films affect me very physicpartner. We don’t necessitate to be very deafening [in films]… I enjoy to [give that] senseing as if somebody is talking into your ear, sitting next to you in a gentle way, not very far away from you. And this is what I enjoy about films that you can have a prolonged stoasty, a very expansive stoasty, but the voice can be still intimate, and in cinema, we can do that. Which is someleang that I enhappiness very much in films, that voices can produce intimacy even in a huge stoasty and that can convey you very seal to the characters, even if we are very far away. Sometimes I leank that I don’t want to go too seal physicpartner to the characters, I discover myself being a little far away. But with the voice, I don’t sense enjoy that, I sense enjoy being seal and hearing and being very gentle [with the talking]. And I leank that is someleang in cinema we can do and it’s the fun, it’s the happiness of making films that we have these choices — I enjoy that a lot.

KOREEDA: I sense enjoy your films have a mighty philosophy behind them, could you talk about that?

KAPADIA: I enjoy to produce films that are not very huge… becaemploy I leank everyday life has a lot of drama, we don’t necessitate to see outside too much. [These are the] benevolent of stories that I enjoy. When we were students at film school, we were reading some Japanese unintelligentinutive stories by Yasunari Kawabata. One of my guideers presentd us to this story called Palm-of-the-Hand Stories from Kawabata, which were equitable one-page stories. And I enjoy very much how he was writing that. It was so misguideingly srecommend enjoy very daily, but it was so many leangs that were covered in equitable 3-4 paragraphs and went from history, past dreams, genuineities, anxieties, happiness. I felt very liberated reading those very unintelligentinutive stories, leanking that you can actupartner talk about a lot of leangs with very little. This process [is] a very hurtful [way for] my guideer to present me to toils enjoy this which are aacquire, misguideingly modest, but there is a lot of layers in it which the juxtaposition produces. I don’t understand if that answers your ask, but it’s how I enjoy to leank about leangs.

Question from the audience: Your film was expansively foreseed to be India’s subleave oution to the Oscars this year. And if it had been selected, I leank it was a very excellent chance that it would be nominated. So I wonder what your thoughts about why the film was not selected?

KAPADIA: Thank you for your ask. I leank with this film, it got a lot already. I’m very satisfied with how the journey of the film has gone. And it’s been repartner more than I foreseeed at all. So everyleang that comes its way, it’s enjoy a bonus for me.

Question from the audience: When I saw the film, the one leang that got the audience quite [confused] and I was so perplexd becaemploy there are so many languages in the movie, but you couldn’t tell becaemploy we don’t understand all the contrastent languages. I heard that when the film was shown that some of [languages] were color coded. How many languages were there?

KAPADIA: India is a country that has enjoy, I don’t understand, 26 official languages or 20-someleang enjoy this. Everybody speaks a contrastent language. We are a very multilingual country and Mumbai is a city where you will hear a lot of languages. So it’s very much part of our culture that we don’t speak each other’s language, and then we all have to speak another language to be able to understand each other. And this is an experience of Mumbai that I had, and I felt that I necessitateed to talk about the city with its multilingual quality. I enjoy the diversity that there is with language in our country, and the desire to produce it [one language] for me is doesn’t quite toil. So in the film also, I wanted to have multiple languages to be genuine to that diversity. [We have] Malayan, Hindi, Marathi as the primary languages, but there are also in the commencening when you will hear the recordary voices, they are in Gujarati… If you travel by train in Mumbai, you will hear all these languages.

 I am repartner interested in the relationship I have with languages becaemploy it can be someleang that if you shift to a huge city and you don’t speak the language, it inserts to that senseing of distance, the senseing of being alienated in conversations and the film was about that as well. So all the characters in the film who can’t speak Hindi, it becomes a benevolent of distance, [a feeling of] not being combineed to the place. But language is also a way that we can produce privacy where I presume will be you and me can speak the language and we are in a accessible space and then we can say the most intimate leang and no one will understand.

But there is also the matter of cities and language that I equitable cherish. So with all my frifinishs, I have a lot of languages. I equitable have to figure out a better way to subtitle. I’m figuring it out.

The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.