ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT

In Mumbai, two nurses share a flat that chance has thrown together rather more than friendship. Prabha (Kani Kusruti), the elder of the two, is married to a man from whom she has heard almost nothing for years; she rebuffs the cautious advances of an admirer. The younger Anu (Divya Prabha) meets a Muslim boyfriend in secret and hides his messages on her phone. When their colleague Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), widowed and without papers for her flat, is forced to leave the city, the two accompany her to her village by the sea. “All We Imagine as Light” by the Indian director Payal Kapadia (India, 2024) tells of three women whose desires find no room in the city.

Kapadia sets the metropolis’s night light against the coast’s daylight, and lets her characters come to themselves where the city’s confines end. The film played in competition at Cannes 2024 and won the Grand Prix, the festival’s second-highest award. It was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2024.

Shown at the 2024 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

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