Payal Kapadia’s debut feature to compete at 2024 Cannes Film Festival

Indian writer-director Payal Kapadia’s feature debut All We Imagine As Light will be competing for Palme d’Or at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival with acclaimed directors like Yorgos Lanthimos (Kinds of Kindness), Paolo Sorrentino (Parthenope), Francis Ford Coppola (Megalopolis), Paul Schrader (Oh, Canada), and more. 

This marks the first time in 30 years that an Indian film has secured a spot in the festival’s prestigious competition section, after Shaji N Karun’s 1994 film Swaham. 

This isn’t, however, Kapadia’s first time experiencing success at the French film festival. Her documentary, A Night of Knowing Nothing, won the L’Œil d’or (Golden Eye) in 2021 at the Director’s Fortnight, an independent sidebar running parallel to the Cannes Film Festival. The following year, another Indian filmmaker, Shaunak Sen, took home the Golden Eye for his documentary, All That Breathes.

The selection list was announced at a press conference in Paris on Thursday by festival president Iris Knobloch and general delegate Thierry Fremaux.

“India and China are countries that are coming back to us, we are very glad about it,” said Fremaux.

“We have people from India, and comedians, coming to the jury. We are always very careful about the subcontinent, (especially) China and India because historically they are major cinema countries, they really understand what the social networks are, how to communicate,” said Fremaux. 

An Indo-French production starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, and Chhaya Kadam, the film delves into the story of Prabha, a nurse grappling with an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Meanwhile, Prabha’s younger friend and roommate, Anu, yearns for a private space to share with her lover. Their paths converge on a road trip to a seaside town, where both women find a haven for their dreams and desires to blossom.

The film was produced by Thomas Hakim and Julian Graff of the French company petit chaos, Zico Maitra from India’s Chalk & Cheese, and Another Birth, alongside Arte France Cinéma, Les Films Fauves (Luxembourg), BALDR Film (Netherlands), and Pulpa Films (Italy).

A Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) graduate, Kapadia’s short film Afternoon Clouds (2017) was also screened at Cannes back when she was still a student at FTII. 

Filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s neo-noir debut feature Santosh will also be screening Un Certain Regard at the festival. The film is produced by Good Chaos in the UK and Haut et Court in France, and stars Shahana Goswami.