All We Imagine As Light (15) 2024

The light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary, working-class Mumbai are explored and celebrated by writer/director Payal Kapadia. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city hospital--head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)--plus their coworker, cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), Kapadia's film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment. Prabha, her husband from an arranged marriage living in faraway Germany, is courted by a doctor at her hospital; Anu carries on a romance with a Muslim man, which she must keep a secret from her strict Hindu family; Parvaty finds herself dealing with a sudden eviction from her apartment. Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquillity of a seaside village with equal radiance, articulated by her superb actresses and by the camera with a lyrical naturalism that occasionally drifts into dreamlike incandescence. All We Imagine as Light is a soulful study of the transformative power of friendship and sisterhood, in all its complexities and richness.

(c. Rotten Tomatoes)

All We Imagine as Light won the Grand Prize at the 2024 Cannes film Festival

At the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, the film received two nominations, for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Director.

The film was voted the Best Film of the Year in Sight & Sound Magazines 2024 end of year poll