ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT

Sunday, February 23, 2025

Doors at 5:00 p.m. | Planet Ant, 2320 Caniff, Hamtramck

Capturing the here and now of modern India with the spontaneity of a candid photograph, ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT is a lustrous achievement that announces Payal Kapadia as an essential filmmaker.

Writer/director Payal Kapadia’s revelatory fiction feature debut ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT explores and celebrates the light, the lives, and the textures of contemporary working-class Mumbai. Centering on two roommates who also work together in a city bbbhospital—head nurse Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and recent hire Anu (Divya Prabha)—plus their coworker, Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam), a cook, the film alights on moments of connection and heartache, hope and disappointment.

Kapadia captures the bustle of the metropolis and the open-air tranquility 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.

Presented with Cinema Lamont.

France, India, Netherlands, Luxembourg. 2024.
Payal Kapadia.
In Malayalam with English subtitles.
Running time 118 min.