Hyderabad: Filmmaker Payal Kapadia has scripted history as her spellbinding drama All We Imagine As Light won the Grand Prix award at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. The movie on Saturday bagged the award, which is the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or, during the closing ceremony of the 77th edition. Kapadia's feature directorial debut, which was screened on Thursday night has received glowing reviews in the international press.
It already has registered its name in the history books after it became the first Indian film in 30 years and first ever by an Indian female director to be showcased in the main competition. The screening of the movie received an eight-minute standing ovation from the audience members. All We Imagine as Light, a Malayalam-Hindi feature, is about Prabha, a nurse, who receives an unexpected gift from her long-estranged husband that throws her life into disarray. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a private spot in the big city to be alone with her boyfriend.
One day the two nurses go on a road trip to a beach town where the mystical forest becomes a space for their dreams to manifest, according to the plotline. International critics have given the movie a thumbs up and praised Kapadia's storytelling prowess. An alumna of the Pune-based Film & Television Institute of India (FTII), Kapadia is best known for her acclaimed documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, which premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival's Director's Fortnight side-bar where it won the Oeil d'or (Golden Eye) award.
Check out the list of winners at the 77th Cannes Festival, as selected by a jury led by director Greta Gerwig.
- PALME d’OR- Anora
- GRAND PRIX- All We Imagine As Light
- JURY PRIZE- Emilia Perez
- SPECIAL PRIZE- The Seed of the Sacred Fig
- BEST ACTOR- Jesse Plemons, Kinds of Kindness
- BEST ACTRESS- Ensemble of Emilia Perez, Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Adriana Paz
- BEST DIRECTOR- Miguel Gomes, Grand Tour
- BEST SCREENPLAY- The Substance
- BEST FIRST FEATURE (Camera d’Or)- Armand
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