ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT
Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner is in cinemas on 29 November
BFI Distribution releases the UK trailer for All We Imagine As Light. The 2024 Cannes
Film Festival Grand Prix winner, written and directed by Payal Kapadia, opens in UK and
Irish cinemas on 29 November 2024, followed by a BFI Blu-ray and BFI Player release in
early 2025. The film recently sold out the 2,200 capacity Royal Festival Hall for its UK
premiere at the BFI London Film Festival on 18 October and is already tipped as a strong
contender in the forthcoming awards season.
An independent Indian feature with the look and feel of a European arthouse modern classic,
exploring the complexities of friendship between three women, this beautiful, sweeping and
emotional film brilliantly captures the frantic pace, the vibrant colours and the heady
atmosphere of life in modern Mumbai.
In Mumbai, thoughtful Nurse Prabha’s routine is upset when she receives an unexpected gift
from her estranged husband. Her younger, flightier and rebellious roommate, Anu, tries in
vain to find a spot in the city to be intimate with her secret boyfriend. Their colleague Parvaty
fights to stay in her home without any requisite paperwork left by her late husband. A trip to a
beach town allows them each to find a space for their desires to manifest.
Featuring Kani Kusruti (Girls Will Be Girls), Divya Prabha (Family) and Chhaya
Kadam (Sister Midnight) in the lead roles, All We Imagine As Light was the first Indian film to
be selected in an Official Competition at Cannes in three decades. Payal Kapadia also made
history as the first female Indian filmmaker ever to have a film in this prestigious section of
the festival.
Payal Kapadia is a Mumbai-based filmmaker who studied Film Direction at the Film &
Television Institute of India. Her short films, Afternoon Clouds (2017) and And What Is The
Summer Saying (2018), premiered at the Cannes Cinéfondation and the Berlinale
respectively. Her first feature film, A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021) premiered at the 2021
Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, where it won the Golden Eye Documentary Prize. European
development funds enabled Kapadia to reside in Europe and develop the film with her
French producers, before beginning production in her native India.
All We Imagine as Light will be released in UK & Irish cinemas on 29 November 2024.
