Cinema, whether you like it or not, affects you a lot, and your politics evolve: Payal Kapadia

Payal Kapadia was in Delhi on International Women's Day, where her Cannes award-winning documentary, A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021), was screened at Asian Women's Film Festival.
Payal said, "I think life, in every moment, is interesting for a filmmaker. And that's what makes us, as filmmakers, so privileged - life becomes so much more interesting because we see it through a cinematic lens."
She shared that her approach to this film and filmmaking is also like the title of the film that was screened, "For me, it is truly A Night of Knowing Nothing. I don’t want to come from a position of knowledge because I don’t know. As I explore, I also get to learn. I’m also figuring things out - it’s like mujhe hi nahi pata. Let’s see. Let me figure it out."

Payal told the audience that her time before FTII and after FTII is very different. She said,"I come from Bombay, and I was very naive when I joined FTII. The institute truly changed the way I thought about the world. Cinema, whether you like it or not, affects you a lot, and your politics evolve as you watch more films and discuss them with people. I started engaging with cinema in a way I never had before. I believe that, for a filmmaker, every moment in life is interesting. And that’s what makes us, as filmmakers, so privileged - because life becomes so much more fascinating when you see it through a cinematic lens. A space like FTII was wonderful because it was so diverse. My batchmates came from Ladakh to Tamil Nadu.
I come from Bombay, a city where students don’t typically engage with politics. We don’t have unions or strong student body representation. Coming to FTII was different. It wasn’t like DU - it didn’t have the same political power as Delhi - but it was still something. It was really a moment that changed the way I saw the world and myself."
Talking about the campus discussions, she said,"I think arguments are inspiring, and when you go to the heart of why they start, being open to them and understanding different perspectives is something FTII taught me."

Payal Kapadia’s Cannes -winning documentary, A Night of Knowing Nothing, is woven together through fictitious letters between two film students who have ended their inter-caste relationship. The film revolves around the 2015 student strike at her alma mater, the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), following the appointment of the university’s new chairman.
She said, "When we saw the footage from Jamia, it was an overwhelming emotion. We could not have made this movie just about what happened - it had to be about how we all felt."
She spoke about the students from JNU in the footage who were crying and said that was exactly how they all felt at FTII too. She added, "There was a kind of helplessness as well. So, I think it was important for me to frame the film in a way that was not about objectivity because that extreme emotion was something many of us went through. Even those who had never experienced this could somehow understand that emotion (through A Night of Knowing Nothing) and have the same visceral reaction."
She spoke about how people often emphasize getting straight to the point in life and in filmmaking, moving from point A to point B. However, she questioned this approach, saying, "It is okay to not go from point A to point B. It is okay to meander. We don't even know where the point actually is."