Director Payal Kapadia We all imagine as light It was selected by the prestigious Sight & Sound magazine as the best film of the year, with Enora, La Chimera, Dahomey and Hard Truths also in the top five. Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, voted by the magazine’s contributors, was “about love, but taking a clear stand against Islamophobia and other religious, racial and class prejudices that limit the lives of real people.”
The magazine said there were more female than male directors in the top 10, a feat that had only happened once before, in the pandemic year of 2020, when there were seven women. This year the number has reached 6. Kapadia, while giving a message to the Sight and Sound team, expressed her happiness that her film was selected as the best film.
“Wonderful, indeed. And very grateful too. We used to get a copy of Sight and Sound at our film school, Film and Television Institute of India. When the new edition came out, we were all excited and clamored to read it. The magazine and its writers are a special place in the heart of every cinephile. place,” wrote the director.
The filmmaker said that the first germ of the idea of All We Imagine as Light took shape in the final year at FTII. She was out of hospital and when it came to writing her final year diploma film, she was drawn to exploring the subject matter. “But as I gathered more materials, I started to feel overwhelmed. The movie was very scary. In haste, I decided to give it up,” she recalled.
Read this also All We Imagine As Light Movie Review: Payal Kapadia’s Lyrical Ode To Working-Class Mumbai And Female Friendship
Kapadia said that after a few years, she returned to the theme of the film with a one-step-at-a-time approach and began to build a larger structure.
‘Working in a film is to bring out the chaos of your mind as best as possible and make a film that keeps you awake at night,’ she said, ‘Now the film has been released in India as well. In different parts of the world, she feels overwhelmed by “how people have taken it”.
“This is a film made with the love of many collaborators over many years – a handmade film. I can only be grateful and grateful to those who treated it as their own. And now I thank you for accepting it and treating it as your own,” he wrote. Other movies on the list include Don’t Expect Too Much from End of the World, The Brutalist, Emilia Perez, Perfect Days, The Zone of Interest, Evil Does Not Exist, I Saw the TV Glow, The Substance and Catch the Tide, among others.
All We Imagine As Light was recently named Best International Film by the New York Film Critics Circle as well as the Gotham Awards. The Malayalam-Hindi film also won the Jury Grand Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) 2024.
Payal Kapadia’s film was released in Indian theaters on November 22, to positive reviews. Even though India’s selection committee has yet to represent the country in the Oscar category, many in India are hoping the film will get recognition in the general category at the 2025 Academy Awards.
All We Imagine as Light is distributed in the United States by Janus Films and Sideshow. Rana Daggubati’s Spirit Media has released the film across India. Starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam, Kapadia’s film explores love, longing and loneliness in the bustling city of Mumbai through three women, two Malayalam nurses – Prabha and Anu – and their friend Parvati. Prabha’s life goes awry when she gets a rice cooker from her husband in Germany. Anu is struggling to find a private place in the city to live with her boyfriend. Prabha’s best friend Parvati, a widow, is forced out of her home by property developers.
Kiran Rao and Aamir Khan production Lapata Ladies (Lost Ladies), a beautiful drama that explores themes of freedom, will represent India at the Oscars in the international film category.