All We Imagine as Light
By Kit Macdonald
This film, the debut feature of the Indian director Payal Kapadia, follows three women negotiating work, desire and solitude in contemporary Mumbai. Prabha, a nurse, is emotionally adrift after receiving an unexpected package from her estranged husband, while her younger colleague Anu struggles to find space for a relationship with a Muslim man her family would disapprove of. Their lives intersect with Parvaty, an older hospital worker facing eviction from her home. Kapadia observes the three with exquisite patience, allowing conversations, silences and fleeting encounters to build emotional weight.
Winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2024, the film moves between social realism and a dreamlike state, particularly during its remarkable final stretch on the Konkan coast. Intimate and fluid, All We Imagine as Light is a tender, politically aware film about connection and the small moments that make an otherwise overwhelming city feel briefly liveable.