Film Title: All We Imagine as Light
Director: Payal Kapadia
Cast: Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam
Genre: Drama, Romance
Release Year: 2025
Rating: 10/10
All We Imagine as Light is the 2024 winner of the Cannes Festival Grand Prix, and Golden Globes and BAFTA nominee. Film has been directed by Payal Kapadia – Indian woman filmmaker whose previous success at Cannes includes her documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing (2021).
In her new film, Kapadia is exploring how Indian women navigate their relationships in a society with a thriving culture of honour and arranged marriages. The film follows three women who all work at the same hospital in Mumbai as nurses. Prabha’s (Kani Kusruti) marriage was arranged by her parents and shortly after wedding he left for Germany to work. At first, he maintained contact with Prabha but eventually he abandoned her, leading to Prabha being stuck in a marriage that brings nothing to her life. She shares a small flat with younger colleague Anu (Divya Prabha) who is secretly dating Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) – member of India’s Muslim minority. As the couple meets in secret right after Anu finishes her shifts, she receives wedding profiles and calls from her parents that are looking for a suitable Hindu husband for her. Anu and Shiaz’s different backgrounds are what stands for them in the way as neither of their families would permit them to marry each other. The third woman is Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) – an older nurse who is on the brink of losing her flat as her late husband did not preserve the paperwork that proves she is rightfully occupying the flat. This forces her to eventually move back to her village.
The way Kapadia blends the stories of Prabha, Anu and Parvaty, while presenting their different viewpoints, generational differences and personal development throughout All We Imagine as Light is nothing short of masterful. As the film follows mostly documentarian conventions, the way the audience gets to know the characters is mostly through their actions and interactions with other people. The characters hardly ever voice their views and values directly in the dialogues (which is not as prevalent in the American fiction film where dialogue is perceived to be more important). Which invites the audience to observe how Prabha, Anu and Parvaty handle the situations and problems directed their way, letting the audience to actively engage with the film’s plot.
This clever writing and direction are only further elevated with wonderful performances by the main cast, who do their characters justice and fully become them on the screen. The result is a very organic story with compelling characters and important themes of womanhood, class, traditionalism and love.
Around that solid textual layer is naturalistic cinematography, not afraid of showing the grit, the dust and hardships of Mumbai’s working class against the tall, modern architecture occupied by the privileged. The lighting on the set is also kept natural and motivated, increasing the realism of the plot and stories of the three protagonists. The visual frame shows Payal Kapadia’s documentarian background and how effectively she uses it in fiction film to tell stories of many Indian women.
All We Imagine as Light is a highly reflective film that is focused on telling the stories that matter and shedding light on the often-forgotten lives of women in India. The arranged marriages that lead to life alone, social differences that try to prevent love from flourishing and being left with nothing because of husband’s death; all of these are challenges that women face in cultures of honour such as India and thanks to Payal Kapadia more people will be reminded of their stories.
All We Imagine as Light has a Norwegian premiere on January 17th.
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