Indian film All We Imagine As Light has won the Grand Prix award at the 77th annual Cannes Film Festival. The Grand Prix is the second-most coveted prize of the film festival after the Palme d’Or. With the award, the Payal Kapadia directorial, starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam and Hridhu Haroon in the lead roles, has become the first Indian film to win the Grand Prix at Cannes.
All We Imagine As Light had premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in its much-feted ‘competition section’ on May 23. It was the first Indian film to feature in the festival’s main segment in 30 years. The last Indian movie to be make it to competition section was Shaji N Karun’s Swaham in 1994.
Express At Cannes: Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light is a meditative soliloquy on loneliness and connection
Also written by Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine As Light follows follows the lives of two nurses from Kerala — Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divyaprabha) – colleagues at a Mumbai hospital and roommates. When Prabha receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband, her regular life is disrupted. In the space-crunched city, her younger roommate Anu struggles to find a spot to be intimate with her boyfriend. When they take a trip to a coastal town, their lives undergo a change.
The film was Payal Kapadia’s third time at Cannes after her short Afternoon Clouds featured in the Cinefondation section in 2017 and A Night of Knowing Nothing won the Oeil d’Or (Golden Eye) Award for Best Documentary Film there in 2021.
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Talking about the movie in an earlier interview with The Indian Express, Payal Kapadia had said, “The story is about the city and the people who come to work in Mumbai. They have families back home. But they find new families in friends and colleagues in the city… As I grew older, I have started relying more on friendships. They are my support system too.”
Exclusive | Payal Kapadia on her All We Imagine As Light making it to Cannes Competition: ‘Indian films’ ethos are not well understood in the West’
The other winners of Cannes 2024 are
Palme d’Or: Anora
Director: Miguel Gomes, Grand Tour
Actor: Jesse Plemons, Kinds of Kindness
Best Actresses: The Ensemble of Emilia Pérez
Jury Prize: Emilia Pérez
Special Award (Prix Spécial): Mohammad Rasoulof, The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Screenplay: Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
OTHER PRIZES
Camera d’Or: Armand, Halfdan Ullman Tondel
Camera d’Or Special Mention: Mongrel, Chiang Wei Liang, You Qiao Yin
Short Film Palme d’Or: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent, Nebojša Slijepčević
Short Film Special Mention: Bad for a Moment, Daniel Soares
Golden Eye Documentary Prize: Ernest Cole: Lost and Found and The Brink of Dreams
Queer Palm: Three Kilometers to the End of the World
Palme Dog: Kodi, Palm Dog
FIPRESCI Award (Competition): The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Mohammad Rasoulof
FIPRESCI Award (Un Certain Regard): The Story of Souleymane, Boris Lojkine
FIPRESCI Award (Parallel Sections): Desert of Namibia, Yoko Yamanaka
UN CERTAIN REGARD
Un Certain Regard Award: Black Dog, Guan Hu
Jury Prize: The Story of Souleymane, Boris Lojkine
Best Director Prize: The Damned, Roberto Minervini; On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, Rungano Nyoni
Performance Awards: The Shameless, Anasuya Sengupta; The Story of Souleymane, Abou Sangare
Youth Prize: Holy Cow! (Vingt Dieux), Louise Courvoisier
Special Mention: Norah, Tawfik Alzaidi
DIRECTORS’ FORTNIGHT
Europa Cinemas Label: The Other Way Around, Jonás Trueba
Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers Prize: This Life of Mine, Sophie Fillières
Audience Choice Award: Universal Language, Matthew Rankin
CRITICS’ WEEK
Grand Prize: Simon of the Mountain, Federico Luis
French Touch Prize: Blue Sun Palace, Constance Tsang
GAN Foundation Award for Distribution: Jour2Fête, Julie Keeps Quiet
Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award: Ricardo Teodoro, Baby
Leitz Cine Discovery Prize (short film): Guil Sela, Montsouris Park
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