Award-winning filmmaker Payal Kapadia recently said that her debut feature film A Night of Knowing Nothing was inspired by the Delhi police violence in the Jamia Millia Islamia University during the anti-CAA protests in 2019.
Stating that the violence left a lasting impact on her, Kapadia cited it as the inspiration for her film, which earned her the Golden Eye award at the 74th Cannes Film Festival in 2021.
"When we saw the Jamia footage, we felt this overwhelming emotion. We tried to frame the film through that emotion,” The Hindu cited her as saying.
Video footage of the police action on Jamia showed Delhi police personnel barging into the campus library and unleashing brutal attacks on the unarmed students who appeared trapped inside the room. The indiscriminate attacks on students left at least a hundred injured, including a student who lost vision in his left eye.
“The people of Delhi would be familiar with what’s shown in the film. Sorry for reminding you... but it’s good not to forget,” Kapadia said.
Kapadia's A Night of Knowing Nothing explores the university student life in India through letters written by a student at the Film and Television Institute of India, to her estranged boyfriend. The film follows the female character as she navigates student life and a broken relationship amid a changing political scenario, which reverberates inside the campus.
The film was screened on March 8 at the India International Centre (IIC) as part of the Asian Women’s Film Festival.
Kapadia, while a student at the institute in 2015, has led a 139 day long protest against the appointment of BJP member Gajendra Chauhan as its chairman. The students questioned his lack of credibility to lead a reputed institution like FTII and alleged that the appointment was "politically motivated."
In 2024, Kapadia won the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival for her fiction feature debut All We Imagine as Light. She was also nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director.
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