All We Imagine as Light
2024 - FRANCE/ INDIA/ NETHERLANDS/ LUXEMBOURG - 114 MINUTES
A FILM BY PAYAL KAPADIA
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The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia, who won the Grand Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for her revelatory fiction feature debut.
Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia’s film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment.
Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. All We Imagine as Light is a soulful study of the transformative power of friendship and sisterhood, in all its complexities and richness.
“A refreshing and bold piece of art that explores the power of womanhood.” - Now Toronto
“A delicate film that slowly and methodically washes over you and warms the heart.” - That Shelf
“It takes an awful lot of skill to make cinema feel this effortless.” - Toronto Star
“A touching and very heartfelt slice-of-life portrait of women in modern India.” - The Joy of Movies
“Payal Kapadia captures the heart of Mumbai.” - POV Magazine
“A film that’ll move you as it did the judges at Cannes that awarded it the Grand Prix this year.” - The National Observer
“Captures memorable scenes in these women’s lives that they would remember like a picture that lasts generations.” - CG Magazine
“The film celebrates womanhood, showing how each needs to support another in the face of male-related problems.” - AfroToronto
“All We Imagine as Light speaks quiet truths, but within those volumes are boundless echoes of women past and present.” - The Gate
“All We Imagine as Light depicts a nuanced, complex migrant reality that touches on issues of gender, religion, caste, class, language and access.” - The Conversation Canada
“A personal, intimate drama.” - Cultural Mining