Payal Kapadia’s richly textured and magnificently subdued All We Imagine As Light came ever so close to winning the 2024 Palme d’Or, nabbing the runner up award, the Grand Prix.
All We Imagine As Light is a delicate ode to female bonding set against the backdrop of the sprawling metropolis of Mumbai, which plays as a pulsating, vivid part in the story. The protagonists of All We Imagine As Light are two Keralan nurses sharing an apartment: the compassionate Prabha, whose absent husband is working in Germany, and the younger Anu, who has a secret relationship with a young Muslim man.
“Kapadia’s storytelling has something of Satyajit Ray’s The Big City and Days and Nights of the Forest; it is so fluent and absorbing… This is a glorious film.” — Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
“It’s a film that feels like a long exhale, the moment of unburdening after a tight embrace. It’s beautiful.” – The Independent (Full review here)
“A miraculously subtle piece of work.” – Los Angeles Times (Full review here)
“Poignantly lyrical as a city symphony, it branches out for a sequel, when the characters abscond to the coast to figure out what to do: at once a respite and a reckoning, ghostly and mysterious.” – The Telegraph (Full review here)
