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Paper short abstract

I here explore the filmography of Indian independent filmmaker Payal Kapadia through an anthropological lens, arguing that Kapadia’s experimental and sensorial filmmaking across Indian independent cinema and visual anthropology, contributes to decolonized forms of ethnographic knowledge production.

Paper long abstract

While Kapadia resists labelling her work as ethnographic or documentary, her cinema blends genres of documentary and fiction. This creates intimate yet collective narratives grounded in lived experiences, interviews, and personal stories. Her films reflect socio-political themes such as migration, gentrification, and student-led protests in contemporary India. Her use of hybrid genres, particularly in A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) and All We Imagine As Light (2024), embodies a search for a “third truth” beyond conventional documentary realism, through creative use of animation, photography and archival footage. By using unorthodox narrative forms and aesthetics, her filmmaking style represents an emerging form of alternative, decolonized anthropological knowledge production against the Indian backdrop.

Kapadia's decade-long body of work (2014–2024) only gained visibility in India after All We Imagine As Light won the Grand Prix at the Festival De Cannes in 2024. Her late recognition highlights imbalances in global cinema and how Indian indie filmmakers often depend on Western validation for limited domestic support.

Kapadia's filmmaking inspired by figures like anthropologist Jean Rouch, embodies a self-reflexive approach in representing 'Others'. I interrogate whether her cinema genuinely connects with its subjects or risks perpetuating extractive tendencies typical of traditional ethnographic film. Or if indeed, Kapadia’s experimental filmmaking can connect Indian independent cinema and shared anthropology. This essay contributes to existing debates on ethnographic filmmaking (Ginsburg, 2018, Wright, 2020), positioning Kapadia’s work within the broader theoretical framework of anthropology of cinema, specific to the Indian context, and the underexplored field of visual anthropology in India.