Payal Kapadia named among the 2026 CHANEL Next Prize winners

Payal Kapadia's remarkable run of international recognition continues. The Indian filmmaker, still riding high off the historic success of All We Imagine as Light, has been named one of ten recipients of the 2026 CHANEL Next Prize — a biennial award from the CHANEL Culture Fund that spotlights artists reshaping their disciplines.

All We Imagine as Light director Payal Kapadia wins 2026 CHANEL Next Prize

Now in its third edition, the Next Prize isn't your typical trophy-and-a-handshake affair. Each winner receives €100,000 in unrestricted funding, plus a two-year mentorship and networking track facilitated by CHANEL's cultural partners, including London's Royal College of Art. It's less a victory lap and more a launchpad — designed to give artists room to chase down ambitious, sometimes career-defining projects.

Payal shares this year's cohort with a genre-spanning lineup: composer and musician Ambrose Akinmusire, choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira, artist-composer Pan Daijing, visual artist Ayoung Kim, visual artist Emeka Ogboh, choreographer-artist Andrea Peña, artist-designer Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, visual artist Pol Taburet, and visual artist Álvaro Urbano — a reminder that the prize casts a wide net across film, music, performance, and visual art rather than crowning a single discipline's best.

For Payal, the honour comes at what's already been a career-altering stretch. All We Imagine as Light took home the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024, a result widely hailed as one of the biggest moments for Indian cinema on the world stage in decades. The film is an observed portrait of three women navigating love, loneliness, and life in Mumbai. It has since become something of a critical darling on the festival and awards circuit.

With the Next Prize now added to her mantelpiece, the question on cinephiles' minds is simple: what does Kapadia do with the runway CHANEL just handed her? Past recipients have used the funding and mentorship window to develop ambitious new work, and given the momentum she's carrying, expectations for whatever comes next are already sky-high.

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