All We Imagine as Light

The light and subtleties of the everyday life of Mumbai’s working class are thoroughly examined and commended with warmth, zest, and compassion through the lens of a young Indian filmmaker, a Grand Prix award winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her captivating fiction debut. Honing in on two roommates, both working at a hospital in town (one as a novice nurse, the other as her supervisor), as well as on a recently retired colleague of theirs, this incredibly nuanced film revolves around the mundane moments of connection and distress, hope and disillusionment. The first is married – through matchmaking – to a man living in faraway Germany, while being closely pursued by a doctor in her immediate surroundings. The second keeps dating a Muslim man, but tries her hardest to conceal her relationship from her Hindu family. As for the third, she is abruptly confronted with the threat of eviction from her apartment. As the camera shifts from the ruckus of the metropolis to the tranquility of a seaside resort, every frame evokes an expressive, yet absurd lyrical naturalism, converting the act of daydreaming into a tool of resistance and transformation.

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Direction: Payal Kapadia

Script: Payal Kapadia

Cinematography: Ranabir Das

Editing: Clément Pinteaux

Sound: Benjamin Silvestre, Romain Ozanne, Olivier Voisin

Music: Dhritiman Das

Actors: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Hridhu Haroon

Production: Petit Chaos

Producers: Thomas Hakim, Julien Graff

Co-production: halk & Cheese, Arte France Cinéma, Baldr Film, Another Birth, Les Films Fauves, Pulpa Film

Costumes: Maxima Basu

Production Design: Piyusha Chalke, Yashasvi Sabharwal, Shamim Khan

Executive producer: Harshit Agarwal, K. C. Pranav Raj, Neil Chowdhury

Format: DCP

Color: Color

Production Country: France, India, The Netherlands, Luxembourg

Production Year: 2024

Duration: 118'

Distribution in Greece: Cinobo

Contact: Luxbox

Awards/Distinctions: Grand Prize – Cannes FF 2024

Payal Kapadia

Payal Kapadia is a Mumbai-based filmmaker. She studied Film Direction at the Film & Television Institute of India. Her short films Afternoon Clouds and And What Is the Summer Saying premiered respectively at the Cinéfondation and the Berlinale. Her first feature film, A Night of Knowing Nothing premiered at the 2021 Director’s Fortnight, where it won the Golden Eye for Best Documentary.

Filmography

2015 The Last Mango before the Monsoon (short)
2017 Afternoon Clouds (short)
2018 And What Is the Summer Saying (short doc)
2021 A Night of Knowing Nothing (doc)
2024 All We Imagine as Light