Kapadia’s first fully narrative film, “All We Imagine as Light,” begins more like a documentary, surveying Mumbai, particularly at night, before gently gravitating toward three women, all of them hospital workers, who are juggling their workaday realities, and those of India’s stratified society, with their own aspirations.

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, the director of this gem, Payal Kapadia, poured her heart out and spoke about the city of Mumbai, the challenges of making independent cinema, the characters she has written for this film,