Payal Kapadia Sweeps CHANEL's Next Prize

BAFTA-nominated Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, best known for her 2024 breakout debut, All We Imagine As Light, has added another international prize to her journey. Named among the winners of the 2026 CHANEL Next Prize, Kapadia will receive €100,000 in unrestricted funding, along with a two-year mentorship and networking programme.

She is among the 10 winners of the CHANEL Next Prize 2026, a biennial award recognising contemporary artists who are redefining their disciplines. Selected from across visual art, film, performance, music, and design, the recipients are conferred a grant and join a two-year mentorship and international networking programme supported by CHANEL’s cultural partners.

Payal Kapadia's Awards Tally

Kapadia won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024 for All We Imagine As Light, which eventually fetched her a slew of prizes and nods, including a Golden Globe nomination for Best Director. It was voted the best film of the year by Sight & Sound. Her short films Afternoon Clouds and And What is the Summer Saying were selected at the Cinéfondation and the Berlinale. Her first feature documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing was selected at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2021 and won L’Oeil d’Or for Best Documentary. In 2025, she was invited to the main competition jury at Cannes. This year, Kapadia was President of the Jury for the 65th Semaine de la Critique at the Cannes Film Festival.

“I have two new films in mind,” Kapadia told The Hollywood Reporter in 2025. “Together with All We Imagine as Light, they will form like a triptych. Not a trilogy, because that would imply that they are a connected story. They will be different pieces, all set in Mumbai.”