In Bollywood-obsessed India, art-house film wins accolades, audiences

Indian cinema is best known for Bollywood extravaganzas. Still, an art-house film about three women navigating loneliness and love in a metropolis is gaining viewers and earning international recognition, including nominations to the Golden Globe awards.

"All We Imagine as Light," a multi-language film set in Mumbai, the country's financial capital, has won several international awards this year, including the Grand Prix at Cannes. It is also the first Indian film nominated in the Best Director category at the Golden Globes, which will be presented on January 5.

It has also been nominated in the Best Picture category for non-English movies.

For director Payal Kapadia, the response to her debut film in her home country is a bonus to the accolades it has earned abroad.

"It's tough for independent films to get screens in India. I am pleased with the response. Now, I want to show the film in places in the country where it has not been shown so far, the smaller cities," Kapadia told Reuters in an interview.

Independent, art-house films don't find too many takers in India, where audiences are raised on a staple diet of Bollywood and other mainstream films, complete with song-and-dance routines, violence, and melodrama. However, more serious content on streaming platforms is slowly changing tastes.

With more than $2 million in box office sales globally, "All We Imagine as Light" also has entries to the Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay, said a representative from Sideshow and Janus Films, which own the distribution rights in the U.S. But it was not India's official submission to the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars.

Kapadia, 38, said she thought of the idea of the film in a hospital waiting room. Initially conceived as a short film, it took eight years to make.

Former U.S. President Obama picked it as one of his favorite films of the year, in a list he shared on social media.

The story revolves around the friendship and love lives of three immigrant women who live and work in Mumbai, the congested metropolis of more than 12 million people, an essential leitmotif in her film.

"Mumbai is a city of many contradictions. While life can be tough here, it also gives people a sense of freedom. We tried capturing that in the film, too," Kapadia said.