Payal Kapadia Reacts To Oscar Buzz Around Cannes Winner All We Imagine As Light: Fingers Are Crossed

All We Imagine As Light At Oscars: The Payal Kapadia directorial will finally hit the Indian theatres courtesy of Rana Daggubatti-backed Spirit Media. The film, majorly in Malayalam, became the first Indian project to bag the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival. It has now generated Oscar buzz by being in the running for India's Academy award contender after being shortlisted by France.

Payal Kapadia reacts to All We Imagine As Light Oscar buzz 

She isn't a person who thinks about the end result, says director Payal Kapadia whose film All We Imagine As Light became the first Indian film to win the Grand Prix award at Cannes and could now well make its way to the Oscars. The film is being released in Kerala on Saturday and later in the rest of the India by actor-producer Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media. It has been submitted to the Film Federation of India (FFI), which decides which film will represent India in the international feature film category at the Oscars. The announcement is likely to be made next week.

While the wait continues, Kapadia said she is just going with the flow and enjoying each step. "I'm not the kind of person who will always think of the end result. It's always a process. Making this film has been a long process, raising funds for it was a process, meeting people was a process and this is also part of the process, so we have to go with it. Let’s see how it goes, our fingers are crossed,” Kapadia told PTI.

We'll try everything that we can: Rana Daggubati on All We Imagine As Light's Oscar buzz 

The film is being released in Kerala on Saturday and later the rest of the India by actor-producer Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media. It has been submitted to the Film Federation of India (FFI), which decides which film will represent India in the international feature film category at the Oscars. The announcement is likely to be made next week. "We'll try everything that we can," Daggubati told PTI when asked what next in case the film is not chosen as India's entry to the Academy Awards.
 

Daggubati, who has the rights to distribute the film in both Malayalam and Hindi languages, praised Kapadia as a "pure filmmaker" devoid of marketing gimmicks. All We Imagine As Light earned the love of the audience purely on the basis of merit, he said. “We are the corrupted ones that get into work to promote, strategise, influence... All that happens on our end. So, they've very purely made a film and where it has gone so far is purely on merit. It's not like how we went for probably Baahubali or RRR, saying, ‘Hey, you know, this is what strategy we will use at the Oscars’. That's not this film, it'll take a very different journey, and I think it's important for India to see different kinds of journeys,” he added.

(With inputs from PTI)