Through  fictional love letters found in a cupboard at the Film and Television  Institute of India, we meet L, a film student writing to her estranged  lover while he is away. Gradually we’re immersed in the drastic changes  taking place at the school and in the lives of young people across the  country as they take to the streets to protest widespread  discrimination.

In her  debut film, Payal Kapadia deftly merges reality with fiction, weaving  together archival footage with student protest videos to create a vital  tapestry of the personal and the political. With its dreamlike editing  rhythms and a revelatory use of sound, A Night of Knowing Nothing—which won the best documentary prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival—is both an essential document of contemporary India and a nostalgic look at youth fighting the injustice of their time.