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

In 2024, as Bollywood struggled to find its footing, smaller films by Indian women telling nuanced stories made headlines in the country and around the world.

In May, Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia presented Everything 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 juggernaut of indie cinema, sweeping film festivals and awards shows. It has been recognized as Best International Film by prestigious associations such as the New York Film Critics Circle and the Toronto Film Critics Association. The film also received two Golden Globe nominations, including for Ms. Kapadia as best director.

It is also on the list of several of the best films of the year, including those by BBC And the New York Times.

And it has company.

Director Shuchi Talati’s coming-of-age drama “Girls Will Be Girls” won two awards at the Sundance Film Festival. Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies (Lost Ladies) was on Netflix’s top 10 list in India for at least two months and was chosen as the country’s official Oscar entry (a controversial one Decision). The Laapataa Ladies did not make it onto the academy’s shortlist. What made it was British-Indian director Sandhya Suri’s Hindi film Santosh, which was selected as the British Oscar entry.

Is this sudden wave of success for Indian films a deviation or a long-awaited shift in global consciousness?

“It’s the culmination of both,” says film critic Shubhra Gupta, pointing out that these films didn’t “happen overnight.”

For example, Girls Will Be Girls director Shuchi Talati and his co-producer Richa Chadha were studying together when they came up with the idea for the film. “They’ve been working on this for years,” Gupta says.

“It is pure coincidence that 2024 was the year these films were released, which sparked shared conversations.”

This happy alignment was a cinematic dream. The global impact of these films stems from their quality and their exploration of universal themes such as loneliness, relationships, identity, gender and resilience. With strong female voices and unconventional feminist narratives, these stories venture into territories unexplored by mainstream Indian cinema.

In All We Imagine As Light, a film made in Hindi, Marathi and Malayalam, three migrant women in Mumbai navigate empathy, resilience and human connection. The narrative explores themes of loneliness and the socio-political landscape, particularly examining interfaith Hindu-Muslim relationships as seen through the character Anu (Divya Prabha) and her bond with Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon).

Kapadia told the BBC that although the women in her films are financially independent, they still face restrictions in their personal lives, especially when it comes to romantic matters.

“For me, love in India is very political…women seem to hold a lot of the so-called family honor and protection of the caste line. So if she marries someone who belongs to a different religion or a different caste.” “For me, it’s a way to control and infantilize women,” she says.

Talati’s Girls Will Be Girls explores female youth, rebellion and generational conflict through the story of a 16-year-old girl studying at a strict boarding school in the Himalayas and her fractured relationship with her mother Anila, who struggles with her own unresolved vulnerabilities emotions.

“It’s the kind of coming-of-age film that we don’t make at all in India,” says Gupta. “It looks at women with a very empathetic, very warm gaze.”

“The age when people experience emotions with and without their bodies, their minds, that exploration but without infantilising the experience – that has never been a part of mainstream Indian cinema,” she adds.

Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies didn’t do well at the box office but received positive reviews from audiences and critics. At a BAFTA screening in London this month, Ms Rao described the current moment as “very special for women from India” and expressed hope for a continued wave of such stories.

Her film is a satirical comedy about two newlyweds who are accidentally switched on the train because of their veils. It offers a sharp commentary on patriarchy, identity and gender roles, a departure from decades of male-centric mainstream Indian films.

“Many of us who think in a very patriarchal way are often like that because we were brought up that way,” said Bollywood star Aamir Khan, one of the film’s co-producers, after the screening. “But we have to be understanding and at least try to help each other to get out of this mindset.”

The biggest surprise this year came from Britain, which chose British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s Hindi-language film “Santosh” as its Oscar entry. The film was shot entirely in India over a period of 44 days and featured a predominantly female crew. “Santosh,” starring Indian actors Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajbhar, was co-produced by people and companies from the UK, India, Germany and France.

The film is essentially an Indian story about violence against women, set as a suspense thriller.

Goswami says the success of ‘Santosh’ and ‘All We Imagine as Light’ points to the merging of boundaries and expansion of the film industry, creating space for cross-pollination and exchange.

“We often think that these Indian films require a (specific) cultural context, but that is not the case. Any film driven by emotion will have universal resonance, regardless of its origins,” she told the BBC.

Three of the films – “All We Imagine as Light”, “Girls Will Be Girls” and “Santosh” – have another thing in common: they are cross-border co-productions.

Goswami agrees that this could be a formula for the future.

“With a French producer, for example, a film gets the chance to be seen by a French audience who can follow that producer or the film industry as a whole. This will make it more accessible and relevant globally,” she says.

Even in Bollywood, some films directed by women have had great success this year. Stree 2, a horror-comedy about a mysterious woman who fights a monster that kidnaps free-thinking women, was the second biggest hit of the year and ran in theaters for months.

On streaming platforms, Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s opulent Netflix series Heeramandi: The Diamond Bazaar, an exploration of the misogyny and exploitation in the lives of courtesans in pre-independent India, was among Google’s most searched TV shows of the year.

Their success seems to signal a growing interest in such stories, and their wide appeal shows that mainstream cinema can address important issues without sacrificing entertainment value.

Despite systemic challenges, 2024 has highlighted the global power of female voices from India and the demand for diverse stories. The dynamic could be crucial for the Indian film industry to achieve wider distribution of its independent films and pave the way for a more diverse and equitable film landscape.