Payal Kapadia’s debut fiction feature ‘All We Imagine As Light’ will compete for the top honours at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival, taking place from May 14 to 25. This marks the first Indian film to compete for the Palme d’Or award in nearly three decades, the last being Shaji N Karun’s ‘Swaham’ in 1994.
Kapadia’s film will compete alongside works by world-renowned directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Baker, Yorgos Lanthimos, Paul Schrader, Magnus Von Horn, and Paolo Sorrentino. The jury will be presided over by Greta Gerwig, director of ‘Ladybird’ and ‘Barbie’.
Anurag Kashyap also commented and wrote, “After 30 years, an Indian film in main competition (sic).”
British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s film ‘Santosh’ has also been selected for the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. The festival will open with Quentin Dupieux’s ‘The Second Act’ on May 14.
Kapadia is a familiar face at Cannes. Her documentary ‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’ won the Golden Eye for best documentary at the 2021 edition.
‘All We Imagine As Light’, an Indo-French production, tells the story of a nurse named Prabha who receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband, causing disruption in her life.
Other Indian films that have previously been selected for the Cannes’ competition section include works by Chetan Anand, V Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Satyajit Ray, MS Sathyu, and Mrinal Sen. ‘Neecha Nagar’ remains the only Indian film to have won a Palme d’Or.
