Spirit of Cinema Award

The 29th International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) will honour Indian filmmaker and Cannes Grand Prix winner Payal Kapadia with the Spirit of Cinema Award. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 5 lakh and a memento. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will present the award at the closing ceremony on December 20 at the Nishagandhi Auditorium.
Payal Kapadia is the first Indian filmmaker to win the Cannes Grand Prix for her celebrated debut feature All We Imagine as Light. The film is a testament to Payal’s central concerns about the marginalised. Her perspective explores the intersections between cinema and politics.
Her docu feature A Night of Knowing Nothing, born out of the FTII protests and the pan Indian struggles against an increasingly repressive regime, won the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival in the Directors' Fortnight section. It also received the Amplify Voices Award at the Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for the Cinephile Award at the Busan International Film Festival.
A prominent figure during the 139-day student protest at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, against the controversial appointment of Gajendra Chauhan as chairman, Payal was one of 35 students arrested and faced institutional repercussions, including the cancellation of her scholarship.
Born in Mumbai in 1986, Payal Kapadia completed her college education at St. Xavier's College and Sophia College before pursuing a filmmaking course at FTII, Pune. While studying, her short film Afternoon Clouds was selected for the Cannes Film Festival's competition section, making her the only student to achieve this distinction.
All We Imagine as Light will be screened at the festival.
The 'Spirit of Cinema' Award was established during the 26th IFFK to honour fearless filmmakers who use cinema as a tool for social resistance. The inaugural recipient was Kurdish filmmaker Lisa Calan. Past awardees include Mahnaz Mohammadi, an Iranian filmmaker who continues her struggle against oppression, and Wanuri Kahiu, a Kenyan director challenging conservative values in her country.