A Night of Knowing Nothing

Payal Kapadia
Part of

59th New York Film Festival

September 24 - October 10, 2021

Through a series of letters read aloud to an absent lover, we learn about the fears, desires, and philosophical identity of a young woman named L, a student at the Film and Television Institute of India, in writer-director Payal Kapadia’s brilliantly fragmentary film about contemporary Indian youths engaged in the politics of university life.

DIRECTOR
Payal Kapadia
YEAR
2021
COUNTRY
France / India
RUNTIME
96 minutes
LANGUAGE
Bengali and Hindi with English subtitles

Through a series of letters read aloud to an absent lover, we learn about the fears, desires, and philosophical identity of a young woman named L, a student at the Film and Television Institute of India. Through these words, and via the documentary images collected by her and her peers of contemporary Indian youths engaged in university life, writer-director Payal Kapadia has constructed a brilliantly fragmentary work of witnessing. A Night of Knowing Nothing—winner of the Golden Eye award for best documentary at this year’s Cannes Film Festival—is a testament to the inseparability of life, film, politics, and dreams, while functioning as an essential portrait of the ongoing struggle for resistance from discrimination.

Support generously provided by:
Centre National du Cinéma et de L’Image Animée (CNC)
Cultural Services of the French Embassy
UniFrance

All NYFF59 documentaries are presented by:

A Night of Knowing Nothing
A Night of Knowing Nothing
A Night of Knowing Nothing

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