Hypnotic, meditative, and almost spiritually evocative of the human condition, ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, directed by Payal Kapadia (A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING, 3rd i’s Film Fest 2023), is a glorious Cannes Film Festival award winner that should not be missed.
The feature begins with a dreamlike ode to the thriving, cosmopolitan, and diverse city of Mumbai, and transitions to a richly textured and delicate poetic portrait of the lives of three women and their journey of self-discovery and friendship.
In Mumbai, Nurse Prabha’s routine is troubled when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a place in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A trip to the sea and beach town of their displaced friend, Parvati, allows them all to find a space for their desires to manifest.
ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT is a magical and poetic masterpiece that is brilliantly unassuming. Filmed with exquisite elegance and precision, it is subtly unconventional and even subversive in its approach to visual storytelling and ways of exploring issues of gender, class and religious inequalities.
“The film confirms Kapadia as one of the most compelling voices of contemporary cinema.” – Paolo Bertolin, film critic
“‘Lyrical’ and ‘delicate,’ Payal Kapadia’s universal, emotional film, premiering at Cannes, will ‘win hearts everywhere.'” – Nicholas Barber, BBC
