Indian filmmaker Payal
Kapadia bagged the Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) award for the Best Documentary at the
Cannes Film Festival for A Night of Knowing Nothing. Her film emerged
the winner in a list of 28 documentaries submitted from around the world.

A Night of
Knowing Nothing explores the
story of a university student in India who sends letters to her estranged lover
who had to go back to his home in the village.

Through these
letters, we come to know bits and pieces of different aspects of her life. With
personal testimonials of L’s life in the letters, the story of a young girl
unravels slowly. In course of the film, dreams merge with reality and fiction
merges with truth.

Payal Kapadia’s
film was up against the likes of Todd Haynes’ The Velvet Underground,
Andrea Arnold’s Cow, Marco Bellocchio’s Marx Can Wait and Rahul
Jain’s Invisible Demons.

Kapadia, the
35-year-old filmmaker, is an alumna of the Film and Television Institute of
India (FTII). According to her website, her art explores what is buried in “the
folds of memory and dreams”, and what is not clearly evident.

Her technique is
made up of “small, fleeting feminine gestures where she seeks to reach the truth”.

Kapadia’s first film
Afternoon Cloud had its world premiere at Cinefondation in the 2017
Cannes Film Festival. She has also worked on the short film Last Mango
Before the Monsoon and the documentary And What is the Summer Saying.

A filmmaker who
challenges the mainstream perspective of looking at the world, Payal Kapadia
was charged with disciplinary action for leading a four-months-long protest against
the appointment of TV actor-turned-politician Gajendra Chauhan as the chairman of
FTII. Kapadia lost her scholarship due to the project and an an FIR lodged
against her.

Kapadia is
currently working on All We Imagine As Light.  The film participated in Cinefondation writing
residency in 2019, and is now at the financing stage. “The film is about two
nurses who live and work in Mumbai and about impossible love,” Kapadia was
reported saying.