Two of your films are being screened in Kundura Sinema’s “The Other Side of the Dream” program. Afternoon Clouds (Öğleden Sonra Bulutlar, 2017) was shot on 35mm film. It has striking widescreen cinematography that relies on color and mise-en-scène. And What Is the Summer Saying… (Ve Yaz Ne Söyler ki, 2018), on the other hand, is mostly black and white and, unlike Afternoon Clouds, uses a 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio. Could you tell us how you made these choices? How do you think these formats affect the viewing experience?  

Both films use formats that are more vertical than 1.85:1 or CinemaScope. In Afternoon Clouds I used the classic European format, that is, the 1.66:1 ratio. Although it is still rectangular, this format preserves the feeling of a vertical image. My general preference is 1.66:1 for fiction and 1.33:1 for non-fiction.

In my view, 1.66:1 is a format that intrudes less on the image and draws less attention to the cinematic form. It can draw the viewer into the narrative without having to bring the artifice of cinema to the forefront. 1.33:1, on the other hand, is a more urgent format that draws attention to itself. Non-fiction work is much more formalistic; this format places a distance between the viewer and itself and creates the space needed for a dialogue to emerge between the two.

Of course, none of these are hard and fast rules. I suppose a filmmaker can be drawn to certain formats, much like a painter choosing a canvas, perhaps… And these ideas can change over time, along with the norms of screening formats. For example, 1.33:1 was the standard television format for many years. Perhaps it had a different effect back then.

Sound also plays a prominent role in your films. In Afternoon Clouds, the ‘outside world’ comes to life almost entirely through sounds seeping in through the windows. And What Is the Summer Saying… is shaped by recordings of the stories, memories and dreams of people living in Kondwal Village in Bhimashankar. In one interview you said that “in cinema, time is measured through sound.” In relation to this idea, how should we approach the use of sound in Afternoon Clouds and And What Is the Summer Saying…?

Whenever I watch a film without sound, I feel that I cannot experience its temporality. Yes, we see people moving within the film, but the sense of time remains arbitrary. I think that if a filmmaker wants the audience to experience time, sound is a fundamental necessity. We can see this in painting as well. In the Western painting tradition, for example, painters worked with darkness and light. The bright areas that create the illusion of “light” in a painting determined where viewers would turn their eyes and how long they would linger there. This idea fascinated me. I think sound in cinema creates the very same play between light and darkness that we find in painting.

But sound also has a quality that creates a physical experience. An image is an illusion; it unfolds at a point away from you. Sound waves, however, spread out and hit you, entering your body. This is a sensation, and it brings you into direct interaction with the image. That is why I see sound as a much more sensory experience, and I like to use it evocatively rather than illustratively.

And What Is the Summer Saying… does not show images of the people speaking. One cannot help but wonder about the sound recording process. Did you also use a camera while making the sound recordings?

This film actually came about through an unplanned mistake! At first I was only planning to make a film about the beekeeper Mr. Patil. During my research I had recorded many interviews with him, as well as his activities. But on days when it was too hot to wander around the forests, I would stay at home and spend time with the women in his family. Naturally, wonderful conversations came up while they were cooking. With their permission, I recorded these conversations, which resulted in many long recordings stretching over hours. A camera could never have captured those intimate, confiding voices. A sound recorder is much less intrusive. Soon I realized that the film was taking shape not where I had planned, but somewhere completely different. I guess I could say that, in the end, it was sound that led me to the film!

Afternoon Clouds features paintings by Arpita Sing, while And What Is the Summer Saying… features illustrations superimposed on the images. Both modes of expression contribute greatly to the films’ dreamlike quality and to their themes of love and loss. Could you tell us about the cultural connotations of these figures and paintings?

Their meaning is really more personal than cultural. Sometimes, while working on a film, I make drawings and illustrations about it. In one of my earlier films, Last Mango Before the Monsoon (Musondan Önceki Son Mango, 2014), I decided to put one of these drawings into the film without any explanation. For me, this is the equivalent of a voice-over. It perhaps reveals a thought, an inner vulnerability, that cannot be expressed in words.

You worked with the same producer (Mayank Khurana), the same sound designer (Shreyank Nanjappa) and the same editor (Ghanshyam Shimpi) on both films. Are they also students at the Film and Television Institute of India? Could you tell us about your crew and your practice of working together?

Yes, we are all students at the same institute. Each of these people is an integral part of the film. More importantly, through the projects we made together, we grew together and slowly began to recognize the language we wanted to create. I think being at film school certainly has that privilege.

Curating a film selection is a lot like editing, especially when there are three films involved… Have you seen Notes from a Journey (Bir Yolculuktan Notlar, 2019), the third film Pawel Wieszczecinski selected for “The Other Side of the Dream”?

Yes, I agree. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t show my films together, because they spill into one another! I haven’t seen the third film yet, but I certainly will.

Alongside “The Other Side of the Dream” selection, Kundura Sinema is also screening Mark Cousins’ Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema. How do you assess the current situation in the Indian film industry in terms of gender and equality? Can we expect a feature film from you in the near future? If there is such a plan, what strategies will you follow to finance the project?

Although there are a number of women directors in India, there is still a long way to go. In the mainstream film industry the numbers are even lower, though they are slowly rising. In independent film and documentary circles, on the other hand, the number of women filmmakers is significant. But what we really need is to see broader representation of women in other departments, especially in cinematography and sound. These are the criteria we need to pay attention to. Another important measure is caste and class representation among the women who have access to the film industry, because the numbers there are very low and deeply worrying.

I currently have two feature film projects: one is fiction, and the other is a hybrid project moving between fiction and documentary. Finding funding for these films within India is almost impossible. I am working with a French producer in the hope of finding funds from Western countries. The road is very long and truly requires patience, but that is something I have accepted.

About PAYAL KAPADIA

She was born in 1986 in Mumbai, India. She studied film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). Following her short films “Cassandra’s Gift” (2012) and “Watermelon, Fish and Half Ghost” (2013), her film “The Last Mango Before Monsoon” won the FIPRESCI Prize and the Special Jury Prize at the Oberhausen Film Festival. Her experimental short documentary “And What the Summer Saying,” selected in 2017 for the Cannes Film Festival’s Cinéfondation section, which supports new generations of filmmakers, had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018 and received the Special Jury Prize at IDFA – International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and the Best Experimental Film Award at the Mumbai Film Festival. Kapadia, who is currently working on her first feature film project, “All We Imagine as Light,” which she developed after being selected for the Berlinale Talents program, is interested in what cannot easily be seen in her films, in what lies hidden somewhere in the folds of memory and dreams. She seeks to find the truth among small, fleeting and feminine gestures.

Payal Kapadia’s films ‘Afternoon Clouds’ and ‘And What Is the Summer Saying,’ screened in Kinoscope’s “The Other Side of the Dream” selection, are available on Kundurama until July 19, 2021!

On the occasion of the film’s screening in Türkiye, the director spoke exclusively to Kundura Sinema and answered the questions of Altyazı Cinema Magazine writer Fırat Yücel.