Split screen: Deepanjana Pal writes on the reality of indie films
‘It was thrilling to be able to watch All We Imagine as Light in theatres. What a change, I thought,’ Pal says. ‘Then I ran the numbers. We've a long way to go’
Two weeks before the release of Pushpa 2: The Rule, the small indie production All We Imagine as Light began its theatrical run in India.
The former is director Sukumar’s mainstream money-spinner, the much-anticipated sequel to the highest-grossing film of 2021, Pushpa: The Rise. Long before it hit theatres, Pushpa 2 had made records. It was released across more than 6,500 screens in the country (more than half the total number.)
All We Imagine as Light (AWIAL), on the other hand, is the definitive arthouse movie. It has a foreign producer, was shortlisted by Oscar committees in both India and France, and has been mesmerising audiences at festivals around the world.
Director Payal Kapadia’s poetic ode to and lament for Mumbai began its run at the Cannes film festival, where it was the first Indian movie in 30 years to compete in the main competition at Cannes. It won the Grand Prix.
On paper, the idea that there is room for movies as different as Pushpa 2 and AWIAL suggests that ours is a vibrant and all-embracing box-office. Yet, as I was going through the year’s releases, the reality that emerged suggested the opposite.
Cinephiles have been largely failed by the mainstream this year. Meanwhile, offbeat movies have struggled to find an audience. AWIAL is the exception. It is only getting the platform of a theatrical release because the Grand Prix and its festival run gave it a luminous build-up.
There is some hope to be drawn from the fact that the India rights were picked up by Telugu star Rana Daggubati’s Spirit Media. Unfortunately, even this has not meant a smooth run for Kapadia’s film.
Understandably, AWIAL was given a limited release, but this has meant just one show a day in some theatres, with timings seesawing between the odd and inconvenient.
In some places, screenings were cancelled for lack of bookings. Elsewhere, there were audiences waiting, with no screenings to go to. In Raipur, more than 100 people signed a petition asking for AWIAL to be released in their city. A post on X tagged Spirit Media and Kapadia. The filmmaker tweeted at Spirit Media: “pls pls let’s show in Raipur”. (Some smaller cities and towns were eventually added to the film’s theatrical run.)
There were other, arguably more painful, hitches. In an appeal to audiences on X, Kapadia posted: “If the cinema you see the film has the wrong aspect ratio - pls report to the projectionist!!” (Such carelessness would be devastating, given how Ranabir Das’s cinematography locates beauty in everyday mundanities such as a sari drying inside a room during Mumbai’s unrelenting monsoon.)
Meanwhile, in Kerala, some theatres played the Malayalam-Hindi-Marathi-English work without subtitles. Again, Kapadia posted: “…If you are facing this, pls write here with the name of the cinema. If you are brave, stop the projection because the subs can be switched on.”
Should a film being hailed by critics around the world as one of the best of 2024 have to struggle this hard?
Finding distribution can feel so impossible for the Indian indie filmmaker that Karan Gour, for instance, released his delightfully odd drama, Fairy Folk (2024), online, in exchange for whatever sum each viewer is willing to pay. (You can watch it on fairyfolkthefilm.com.)
Streaming platforms were supposed to make it easier for independent cinema to find an audience. Before them, the same optimism reared its head in the late 1990s, as multiplexes took shape across the country.
Two decades on, multiplexes are too expensive for indie filmmakers, and streaming platforms are wooing stars and star kids in the hope that this will translate into more subscribers. Perhaps this approach will give these businesses the profits they seek, but it isn’t serving either the creative people who make up the core of the film industry or the audiences who sustain it.
(To reach Deepanjana Pal with feedback, write to @dpanjana on Instagram)
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