The film had its world premiere at the main competition of the 77th Cannes Film Festival on 23 May 2024, where it was nominated for the Palme d'Or and won the Grand Prix.[2][3] It was the first film from India to compete in the main competition since Swaham in 1994.[4]
Malayalis Prabha and Anu are nurses living together in Mumbai. Prabha is straitlaced and reserved, and yearns for her husband, who lives in Germany and visited India only once for a short arranged marriage, but has not contacted her in over a year. Anu is more outgoing and is having a secret affair with a Muslim man named Shiaz.[10]
One day, Prabha and Anu receive a modern rice cooker from an unknown sender; the cooker is made in Germany. A doctor, Manoj, tries to woo Prabha, but she rejects his advances, claiming her marital status.
Prabha tries to help Parvaty, the cook at their hospital, fight against a construction company who wants to demolish her chawl to build a skyscraper. Unable to claim legal tenancy, Parvaty decides to quit her job and move back to her village near Ratnagiri. Prabha and Anu travel with her, to help her relocate.
Unbeknownst to Prabha and Parvaty, Shiaz has followed Anu. Then they meet and secretly come together in a private place. He kisses her lips and neck. Anu feels shy, with a tingling sensation running through her. In that impulse, she kisses him intensely, and they engage in sexual intimacy.
They secretly meet up, which Prabha discovers. Later they have sex. Meanwhile, Prabha rescues a middle-aged man from drowning by performing CPR. While he is waiting for the local doctor, Prabha cleans and cares for him. She sees the man she rescued as her husband. He apologises for abandoning her and seeks her forgiveness, but she tells him that she does not want to see him ever again.
That night, at a beach shack, Prabha asks a surprised Anu to invite Shiaz to sit with herself and Parvaty. They all chat happily, as the lights of the shack shine over them.
The film was produced by Thomas Hakim and Julian Graff through their French-based company Petit Chaos, in co-production with the Indian companies Chalk & Cheese and Another Birth, as well as by the Netherlands's BALDR Film, Luxembourg's Les Films Fauves, Italy's Pulpa Films and France's Arte France Cinéma. Hakim first met Kapadia at the 68th Berlin International Film Festival in 2018. This was the first feature film produced by Chalk & Cheese, which previously produced commercials for nine years.[4][11]
Kapadia used money from the Huub Bals grant and Cinéfondation to reside in Europe in order to plan the film production with Hakim. Financing for the film was obtained from Arte, Cineworld, CNC, Condor, Eurimages, Gan Foundation, Hubert Bals Fund, Luxbox, Pulpa Film, and Visions Sud Est.[4]
Filming was done in Mumbai over the course of twenty-five days and then in Ratnagiri for fifteen days.[4]
All We Imagine as Light was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, where it had its world premiere on 23 May,[12] and received an eight-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening.[13][14] This is the first film from India to compete in the main competition at Cannes since Swaham in 1994, and Kapadia is the first Indian female filmmaker to do so.[4] It won the Grand Prix, becoming the first Indian film to do so.[15]
On 9 September 2024, it was announced that Spirit Media, founded by Indian actor Rana Daggubati, had acquired Indian distribution rights to the film.[16] Spirit Media announced that the film would begin its Oscar-qualifying release with a limited theatrical release in Kerala starting on 21 September under the Malayalam title 'പ്രഭയായ് നിനച്ചതെല്ലാം' i.e. Prabhayay Ninachathellam.[17]
Janus Films and distribution partner Sideshow acquired the North American rights for the film on 20 May 2024,[21] and released the film on 15 November 2024 in New York and Los Angeles, with a nationwide expansion following its opening.[22] The film was also played at the Toronto International Film Festival on 5 September 2024.[23] It was released in France by Condor Distribution on 2 October 2024.[24] It was featured in the accolades section of the 55th IFFI,[25][26] and Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam screened on 30 January 2025.[27] The film made its digital release through Disney+ Hotstar from 3 January 2025.[28]
Reception
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 158 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.5/10.The website's consensus reads: "Capturing the here and now of modern India with the spontaneity of a candid photograph, All We Imagine as Light is a lustrous achievement that announces Payal Kapadia as an essential filmmaker."[29]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 93 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[30] On AlloCiné, the film received an average rating of 3.8 out of 5, based on 31 reviews from French critics.[31]
Peter Bradshaw, writing in The Guardian, gave the film five stars and praised it as an "absorbing story of three nurses that is full of humanity".[32] Nicholas Barber, writing in the BBC, also gave the film five stars.[33]
The British film magazine Sight & Sound named it the best film of 2024 in its poll of over 100 critics worldwide.[7] It was also ranked 1st in the Best Movies of 2024 list from The New York Times, with Manohla Dargis writing that Kapadia "incorporates images of everyday people milling through the city, images that connect her characters to a sea of humanity and, by extension, to those of us watching."[34]
The film was ranked 5th among the top 25 European works of 2024 by the journalists at Cineuropa.[35]
In June 2025, IndieWire ranked the film at number 58 on its list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 2020s (So Far)."[38]
Academy Awards selection controversy
For the 97th Academy Awards, All We Imagine As Light was not selected to be submitted by either France or India, with the former submitting Emilia Pérez, and the latter submitting Laapataa Ladies. The film had been shortlisted for France's submission.[39] The Film Federation of India's (FFI) decision to not submit the film was unexpected, with NPR's Diaa Hadid remarking that the film's international reception had "garnered raised hopes that India might finally have a serious contender for an Oscar in the best foreign film category".[40] Many like Naman Ramachandran of Variety drew comparisons to India's decision to not select The Lunchbox (2013) and RRR (2022) for its Academy Awards submissions, particularly in light of the film's success at the Cannes Film Festival with it having won the Grand Jury Prize.[41]
At the initial news announcing the selection of Laapataa Ladies, FFI president Ravi Kottarakara explained All That We Imagine As Light's exclusion, saying "The jury said that they were watching a European film taking place in India, not an Indian film taking place in India."[42] Justifying its selection, the FFI noted on Laapataa Ladies, "Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance. Well-defined, powerful characters in one world, a Laapataa Ladies (Hindi) captures this diversity perfectly, though in a semi-idyllic world and in a tongue-in-cheek way."[42] Kapadia responded to the controversy by expressing her appreciation for Kiran Rao's works, saying to Indiewire "I just think it’s really great that there are two films from India that are doing this well, and they’re both by women."[43]
On December 17, the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences released its shortlist for a variety of categories, including best International Feature Film, and India's selection (Laapataa Ladies) was not selected, triggering a renewed discussion on the decision to "snub" the film.[44] Industry figures like director Hansal Mehta and Ricky Kej publicly voiced their discontent with the FFI's decision to not send All We Imagine As Light, with the former sarcastically remarking "Film Federation of India does it again! Their strike rate and selection of films year after year is impeccable."[45]
In light of the renewed controversy following the release of the Academy Award shortlist, Jahnu Barua, the head of the 13-member all-male jury remarked to the Hindustan Times that people ought to be "respectful of the process".[46] Elaborating on the decision to not consider All That We Imagine As Light, Barua said "The jury felt that her film was very poor technically."[46]
↑Heimlich, Rich (21 December 2024). "2024 PFCC Annual Awards". Philadelphia Film Critics Circle. Archived from the original on 22 December 2024. Retrieved 21 December 2024.
↑"The 2024 GWNYFCA Film Awards Nominees". Greater Western New York Film Critics Association (GWNYFCA). 24 December 2024. Archived from the original on 23 December 2024. Retrieved 24 December 2024.
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