Director Payal Kapadia on All We Imagine As Light's Oscar hope: Fingers crossed

Payal Kapadia's film 'All We Imagine As Light' won the Grand Prix award at Cannes and has now been submitted for review to be India's official entry into the Oscars.

In Short

• Payal Kapadia's film is the first Indian film to win the Grand Prix award at Cannes
• It has been sent for review to be India's official entry into the Oscars
• The film will also be releasing in Kerala today, September 21

Director Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light made India proud at the 77th Cannes Film Festival by winning the Grand Prix. The film will also be releasing today, September 21, at select theatres across Kerala. All We Imagine As Light, whose distribution rights have been acquired by Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media, has now been submitted to Film Federation of India (FFI) for consideration as India's entry for the international feature film category at the Oscars, with an announcement expected next week.

Rana Daggubati, who is distributing the film added that he and the team will 'try everything we can' in case it is not chosen as India's entry to the Oscars. It might then be sent for consideration in the general categories.

Talking to PTI, director Payal Kapadia said, "I'm not the kind of person who will always think of the end result. It's always a process. Making this film has been a long process, raising funds for it was a process, meeting people was a process and this is also part of the process, so we have to go with it. Let’s see how it goes, our fingers are crossed."

Rana hailed Payal as a 'pure filmmaker devoid of any marketng gimmick'. He also told PTI, “We are the corrupted ones that get into work to promote, strategise, influence... All that happens on our end. So, they've very purely made a film and where it has gone so far is purely on merit. It's not like how we went for probably Baahubali or RRR, saying, ‘Hey, you know, this is what strategy we will use at the Oscars’. That's not this film, it'll take a very different journey, and I think it's important for India to see different kinds of journeys.”

The film follows Prabha (Kani Kusruti), a Mumbai nurse whose life is turned upside down after receiving a rice cooker from her estranged husband. Divya Prabha plays Anu, her roommate and colleague, who faces challenges finding privacy in the city to meet her boyfriend. Prabha’s best friend, Parvati (Chhaya Kadam), a widow, is being pushed out of her home by property developers.

Titled Prabhayay Ninachathellam in Malayalam, the film will later expand to major cities across the country, following its initial Kerala release on limited screens. The movie is an official Indo-French co-production between Chalk and Cheese Films from India and petit chaos from France. Indian producers Zico Maitra (Chalk and Cheese Films) and Ranabir Das (Another Birth) played a crucial role in the film's creation, with Das also serving as the cinematographer.