Payal Kapadia’s book ‘All we Imagine as Light’ sets up partners for Petit Chaos

After her stunning performance at the Cannes Festival, she won its Golden Eye award for best documentary. “A Night of Knowing Nothing,” Payal Kapadia’s fiction debut “All We Imagine as Light,” has attracted the most potent production partner support of any project introduced at this year’s Locarno Match Me!

“Night’s” producers. Petit Chaos’ Thomas Hakim, Julien Graff in France and Ranabir Das (also DP and editor on “Night”) at India’s Another Birth will produce “Light.”

Also on board, confirmed early July, is Oliver Pere at Arte France Cinéma. Further co-producers take in Zico Maitra and Aastha Singh (Chalk & Cheese, India), Frank Hoeve (Baldr, Netherlands), Gilles Chanial (Les Films Fauves, Luxembourg and, in the latest addition to partners, Denise Lee and Roberto Minervini (Pulpa Films, Italy).

The multilateral backing is not surprising as it could be a sign that producers have been interested in the project. “All We Imagine as Light”It is highly anticipated “A Night of Knowing Nothing,”A film in which “a palimpsest of dusky imagery, reflective narration and evocative score create an achingly melancholic portrait of modern student protest,” Jessica Kiang wrote in herVarietyreview about a “dreamlike essay on the poetics of protest in Modi’s India.”

World premiering at the 2021 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, “A Night of Knowing Nothing”This year, it was theatrically released in France, U.K. and Portugal. It has been screened around the globe since its debut last year.

“Light,”Like “Night,”The dreamlike and reality are combined. The focus of the book is however new. Nurse Prabha is given an unexpected gift by her husband, which throws her entire life into turmoil. Anu, her younger roommate tries unsuccessfully to find a place in the city for intimate moments with her boyfriend.

The synopsis reads: One day, two nurses travel to a beach-town to find the magical forest. This is where their dreams can come true.

“Storytelling in India has been used as a tool of transference to calm the listener’s anxious heart. Here, the two women become the characters of the story they would like to hear, and for this brief moment, are free of the world they belong to through a collective dream,” Kapadia said in a brief director’s statement.

“It is the juxtaposition of these states of being that can perhaps create a third understanding which goes beyond the sum of its parts – tucked away somewhere in the folds of memories, dreams and unspoken desires,”She added.

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Thomas Hakim
Thomas Hakim

Founded in 2018 by Hakim and Julien Graff, Petit Chaos’ is also at Locarno with“Ikimanuka,”Rwandan Samuel Ishimwe won the Berlin Silver Bear for his short story “Imfura,” and Pablo Dury’s “Animals.” That’s a highly cosmopolitan slate.

“We are developing several fiction features and we will keep producing short films and documentaries, with directors from France and abroad,” Hakim toldVariety. “Being diversified and producing films for cinema and festivals will remain our core business model. I hope to be able to co-produce more films as a minority producer.”

These should not pose too great a problem. Petit Chaos is based in Tours, which is a rapidly expanding production hub. It can access both federal and regional funding. Companies can also apply to the CNC’s Aide aux Cinémas du Monde, which has backed at least six movies screening this year as completed titles at Locarno.

For my first feature film as a producer,A Night of Knowing Nothingby Payal Kapadia, I was quite lucky,” hakim said, referring to its theatrical roll-out around the world.

“But I know the market is tougher than before. So finding the right partner for each film is more important than ever,”He concluded. Locarno Pro’s Match Me!, a vibrant and still building networking meet, may well further this objective.

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