How feminism, not Bollywood, drew global audiences to Indian cinema in 2024

In 2024, when Bollywood was struggling to hold its own, small films made by Indian women made headlines in the country and around the world.

In May, Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light made history by winning the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.

In the months since, All We Imagine as Light has become a staple of indie cinema, finding success on the film festival and awards circuit. Prestigious organizations including the New York Film Critics Circle and the Toronto Film Critics Association have judged it for best international film. It also received two Golden Globe nominations, including one for Ms. Kapadia as best director.

Director Shuchi Talati’s coming-of-age drama Girls Will Be Girls won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Kiran Rao's Lapata Ladies spent at least two months in Netflix's top 10 in India and was selected as the country's official Oscar entry (a controversial decision). "Lapata Ladies" did not make the Academy's shortlist. What was the contribution of British-Indian director Sandhya Suri's Hindi film "Santosh," which was selected as the UK's Oscar nomination?

Is this sudden success of Indian cinema a shift in global consciousness, or a long-awaited one?

"It's the culmination of both," says film critic Shuvra Gupta, noting that these films were not "made overnight."

For example, Shuchi Talati, the director of "Girls Will Be Girls," and its co-producer Richa Chadha were in college together when they first came up with the idea for the film. "They've been working on it for years," says Gupta.

“It is pure serendipity that 2024 is the year these films are released, sparking conversations together.”

This auspicious alignment is a cinematic dream. The global impact of these films lies in their quality and exploration of universal themes such as loneliness, relationships, identity, gender and resilience. Through strong female voices and unconventional feminist narratives, these stories delve into uncharted territory in mainstream Indian cinema.

In “All We Imagine as Light,” made in Hindi, Marathi and Malayalam, three migrant women from Mumbai embark on a journey of empathy, resilience and human connection. The narrative delves deeply into themes of loneliness and socio-political landscape, particularly the exploration of interfaith Hindu-Muslim relations encountered by the character Anu (Divya Prabha) and her bond with Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon).

Kapadia told the BBC that while the women in her films are financially independent, they still face limitations in their personal lives, especially when it comes to love.

"To me, love in India is very political... women seem to hold onto a lot of the so-called honour of the family and the protection of the caste. So if she marries someone from a different religion or a different caste, it becomes a problem. To me, it's actually a way of controlling women and making them childish," she said.

Girls Will Be Girls explores female puberty, rebellion and generational conflict through the story of a 16-year-old girl attending a strict boarding school in the Himalayas, who struggles with her own vulnerability and unresolved emotions, her mother Anila.

"It's a kind of ups and downs film that we don't do at all in India," Gupta says. "It looks at women in a very sympathetic, very warm way."

“At an age when people experience emotions with and without their bodies, minds, that exploration but don’t childishly make the experience – that has never been part of mainstream Indian cinema,” she added.

Kiran Rao’s Lapata Ladies did not perform well at the box-office but received warm reviews from audiences and critics. At a BAFTA screening in London this month, Ms Rao described the current moment as “really special for women in India”, expressing hope for a continuation of such stories.