Cannes 2024: Payal Kapadia's 'All We Imagine As Light' screened at 77th Film Festival

May 24, 2024

Cannes [France], May 24 : India has truly made a splash at the ongoing Cannes Film Festival. Thursday was no exception.
Filmmaker Payal Kapadia's 'All We Imagine As Light' was screened at the film gala last evening. Notably, it is the first Indian film in competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years.
The fiction feature 'All We Imagine as Light' follows two nurses (Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha) from Kerala, southern India, who are roommates in Mumbai. A trip to a beach town allows them to find a space for their desires to manifest.

It stars Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, and Hridhu Haroon in prominent roles. And all these actors ruled the iconic red carpet like a pro.
In the images posted on official Instagram account of the Cannes Film Festival, the team of 'All We Imagine as Light' beamed in joy in front of the French shutterbugs. They also shook a leg on the red carpet.

Take a look at the pictures
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7UvwQsgCSA/?img_index=2

Recently, Payal, in interaction with Variety, opened up about directing 'All We Imagine as Light'.
"I was interested in women who come to a different place to work, and be financially independent. And it was something that I had seen growing up in a family of a lot of women, and also the ideas that we have, that financial freedom can in some way, give us some kind of autonomy, in India it's more complicated than that. Which is something that I wanted to explore in the film, that when does one truly have that autonomy for our personal desires and choices," she shared.

"Mumbai is a city which has a lot of contradictions. Because it is slightly easier for women in our country to come to work. But it's also an expensive city. And it's a difficult city to live in, to commute every day. I wanted to have all these contradictions. And in a space like Mumbai, which is extremely capitalistic - one of the stories in the film is about a woman who's losing her house. And it's the gentrification of the Lower Parel and Dadar areas that I've seen my whole life. It's a very important part of Mumbai, a history that we need to remember," she added.

Payal Kapadia is a graduate of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII).