All We Imagine As Light: What international reviews say about Payal Kapadia's historic Grand Prix winner

International praise has poured in after the historical premiere of Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light, India's first film in 30 years to compete for the Palme d'Or, the highest honour of the Cannes Film Festival. The film went on to win the Grand Prix award at the closing ceremony. Critics from the West have hailed the film as ‘gentle,’ ‘glowing,’ and ‘luminous’. (Also Read – Cannes 2024: Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light makes history; gets eight minute standing ovation)

Variety

“Few films have ever so beautifully captured the lonesome romance of Mumbai after dark.”

The Guardian

“A mood of romantic and emotional insecurity hangs over these women’s lives, made more nerve-janglingly unhappy and soap-operatic for unfolding in the big city where there are so many people but you are effectively alone.”

The Hollywood Reporter

“Its story of women looking for love and happiness in a calamitous world brings to mind those popular Mumbai-set movies, in which heroines suffer plenty of heartbreak before things eventually work out.”

IndieWire

"The beats of All We Imagine as Light are calibrated with hypnotic grace creating a rhythm that induces pure pleasure. No mystery of the human heart will reveal itself until the scene that naturalistically brings it to the surface."

About the film

All We Imagine as Light”, a Malayalam-Hindi feature, is about Prabha, a nurse, who receives an unexpected gift from her long estranged husband that throws her life into disarray. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a private spot in the big city to be alone with her boyfriend. One day, the two nurses go on a road trip to a beach town where the mystical forest becomes a space for their dreams to manifest, according to the plotline.

An alumna of the Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Payal Kapadia is best known for her acclaimed documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, which premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival’s Director’s Fortnight side-bar where it won the Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) award. All We Imagine As Light is the first ever film by an Indian female director to be screened in the main competition of the prestigious film gala.