Payal Kapadia

Payal Kapadia is a filmmaker from Mumbai, India. Trained at the Film and Television Institute of India, she has directed a non-fiction film A Night of Knowing Nothing which premiered at the Director's Fortnight section in Cannes in 2021 where it won the Golden Eye Documentary Award. Her first fiction feature film All We Imagine As Light (2024) is an ode to friendship and Mumbai. It was the first Indian film in Cannes competition after a thirty-year absence. It won the Grand Prix at Cannes and has continued its run to the Golden Globes 2025 (nominations for Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film) and won numerous awards, including Best Film Prize at the Asian Film Awards 2025 in Hong Kong.

As a part of her trilogy of films in Mumbai, Kapadia will be researching and developing her next film during the Fellowship. In this film she excavates the ever-shifting notion of the city's history and the impact it has on those who inhabit it.