ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This year, an Indian film emerged to rare international acclaim from the Cannes Film Festival to the Golden Globes. And yet it was snubbed at home, as NPR's Diaa Hadid reports from Mumbai, where the film was shot.
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DIAA HADID, BYLINE: There's a scene in "All We Imagine As Light" where two women hurl rocks at a banner advertising a luxury development - a development that will raze the home of one of the women.
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HADID: That sly protest, small in the face of the obstacle it must tackle, speaks to how this movie captures the mismatched odds between workers and the city they keep running - the friendships between women who are otherwise alone.
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HADID: For her skill in drawing out these themes, director Payal Kapadia is being widely celebrated.
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HADID: Her film was the first from India to win the Grand Prix at Cannes in more than 70 years.
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HIROKAZU KOREEDA: Grand Prix goes to "All We Imagine As Light," by Payal Kapadia.
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HADID: She won best international feature at the Gotham Awards. The New York Times and The Associated Press called it the best film of the year. Those are just the highlights. The film follows three women - Parvaty, who's trying to save her home with the help of Prabha, a stoic nurse.
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KANI KUSRUTI: (As Prabha, non-English language spoken).
HADID: Prabha is like an older sister to her roommate Anu, who's always late paying the rent. Anu is in Mumbai to flee small-town life, but even here, she's harshly judged because she's Hindu and has a Muslim boyfriend in a place that abhors mixed-faith romance.
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HADID: And the light of the movie title comes in when they reach the sea.
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UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in non-English language).
HADID: The light comes in when they leave Mumbai, a city of more than 20 million people from billionaires to children who sleep on sidewalks.
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HADID: The city's viewed through the prism of these women, largely from windows in pre-dawn and late night darkness on their train commutes to work.
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ANKUR PATHAK: I don't remember a film that has captured Mumbai as intimately as "All We Imagine As Light"...
HADID: Ankur Pathak is a Mumbai-based assistant director and writer.
PATHAK: ...From, like, the houses that feel so lived in to just the everyday struggles of working women.
HADID: The international acclaim that "All We Imagine As Light" garnered raised hopes that India might finally have a serious contender for an Oscar in the best foreign film category. And it was indeed considered by the Indian committee that selects a film to be the country's submission to the Oscars. But "All We Imagine As Light" wasn't selected because the judging committee felt the film wasn't Indian enough. Ravi Kottarakara, president of the Film Federation of India - the body that forms a jury to select India's submission - explained to local media that the jury felt like "All We Imagine As Light" was like, quote, "watching a European film take place in India." Perhaps he was referring to its broody light, the lingering shots, the story's gentle unfurling.
PAYAL KAPADIA: I'm at a loss on this.
HADID: That's director Payal Kapadia. She asks, what is Indian then?
KAPADIA: I don't know how we can define what is Indian and what is not. But the actors are Indian. The entire crew was Indian.
HADID: Except, she says, for one French citizen. For its submission to the Oscars, the film federation picked "Lost Ladies" by prominent female director, Kiran Rao.
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HADID: It's a big-hearted movie about two brides who are mistakenly taken by the wrong grooms. But the film hasn't had the same international buzz of "All We Imagine As Light," which film critic Anna Vetticad says is key for an Oscar win.
ANNA VETTICAD: If you are choosing to send a film for the Oscars, then it makes sense for you to look around you and figure out which film you think has the biggest chance of winning. Otherwise, why are you bothering to send one in the first place?
HADID: Adding to the controversy, the all-male jury explained their choice of movie with a statement that began, quote, "Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance." Kottarakara of the Film Federation of India told local media that the jury meant to say that Indian women are like Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and fortune, and like Kali, the goddess of death and violence. Vetticad again.
VETTICAD: Their description was quite ridiculous and condescending.
HADID: Condescending both to the movie that India wants to win an Oscar and to the one that it sees as not Indian enough. Diaa Hadid, NPR News, Mumbai.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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