New Delhi: Filmmaker Payal Kapadia is among the 10 winners of the 2026 CHANEL Next Prize, a biennial award recognising contemporary artists who are redefining their respective disciplines.
Kapadia, who became the first Indian filmmaker to win the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival for her debut feature ‘All We Imagine as Light’, is the sole filmmaker among this year's recipients.
Established in 2021 by the fashion luxury label's Culture Fund, the CHANEL Next Prize awards €100,000 in unrestricted funding to each recipient to help develop ambitious new projects.
The winners also join a two-year mentorship and networking programme facilitated by the House's cultural partners, including the Royal College of Art in London.
The 2026 winners include 10 artists from 10 countries working across film, visual art, performance, design and music.
"The CHANEL Next Prize creates the conditions for artists to thrive on their own terms. Each winner is a trailblazer shaping the now and defining the next with creativity and audacity. Following their journeys will be nothing short of thrilling," Yana Peel, President of Arts, Culture & Heritage at CHANEL, said.
Kapadia, a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India, first went to Cannes with her short film ‘Afternoon Clouds’, which was selected for the La Cinéfondation section in 2017.
Her non-fiction film ‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’ subsequently won the L'Œil d'Or for best documentary at Cannes in 2021.
In 2024, Kapadia's debut feature ‘All We Imagine as Light’, an exploration of female friendship, love and longing in Mumbai, became the first film from India to compete for the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 30 years. The film went on to win the Grand Prix, becoming the first Indian film to receive the honour.
The other 2026 CHANEL Next Prize winners are Ambrose Akinmusire, a US composer and musician; Nigerian visual artist and sound artist Emeka Ogboh; Portuguese dancer and choreographer Marco da Silva Ferreira; Chinese visual artist and composer Pan Daijing; Mexican visual artist and designer Barbara Sanchez-Kane; French visual artist Pol Taburet; Spanish visual artist Alvaro Urbano; South Korean visual artist Ayoung Kim; and Canadian-Colombian performer and choreographer Andrea Pena.