Ex-FTII Chief Gajendra Chauhan Finally Spoke About The Case Against Cannes Winner Payal Kapadia( Photo Credit – Festival de Cannes / Instagram; IMDb )
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Payal Kapadia’s history-making film All We Imagine As Light has become the town’s talk and is raising many questions. A past encounter when she was a student at FTII is piquing people’s interest. For the uninitiated, a case was filed against Kapadia and many students for protesting the appointment. Now, after her global win, Gajendra Chauhan is finally breaking his silence about Payal Kapadia’s case and has this to say about her win.
Film director Payal Kapadia received congratulations from actor-politician Gajendra Chauhan, who briefly held the position of chairman of the Pune-based Film and Television Institute of India, on her win of the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival for her film “All We Imagine as Light.” She was disciplined when Payal refused to accept Chauhan’s nomination as the institute’s chairman in 2015.
Chauhan added that he was unclear if Payal Kapadia was mentioned in the chargesheet that was brought against nearly 35 students for allegedly holding FTII director Prashant Pathrabe captive in 2015 during the institute’s protests.
Chauhan continued, “I don’t remember correctly if her name was on the chargesheet. But a large group of students had held and confined, actually hijacked, the then-FTII director Prashant Pathrabe. He had diabetes and was held against his will for 12–14 hours.”
Payal Kapadia and other students protested Chauhan’s appointment as FTII chairman for 139 days in 2015, citing his lack of credentials as justification. The institute revoked Kapadia’s scholarship due to her protestive class boycott.
But after Kapadia’s 13-minute short film, “Afternoon Clouds” (2017), was accepted into the 70th Cannes International Film Festival, FTII changed its mind and chose to back her.
Actors Divya Prabha, Kani Kusruti, Azees Haneefa, Hridhu Haroon, Lovleen Misra, and Chhaya Kadam lead the cast of “All We Imagine As Light.” The movie has won the Le Grand Prix award at The Cannes Film Festival. Payal’s film created history at the international film festival.
