It’s easy to say that All We Imagine is Light is about the tension between two Mumbai based nurses. But the film from Indian director and writer Payal Kapadia is, as these things go, more than just that. Nurses Anu (Divya Prabha) and Prabha (Kani Kusruti), belong to the Kerala diaspora and make it in the lonely city. Prabha is slightly older btut she catches the attention of a fellow Keralite doctor Manoj (Azees Nedumangad). When their friend and coworker Parvati (Chhaya Kadam) loses her apartment, they help her in Kerala. Prabha, then, discovers that Anu’s Muslim boyfriend Shiaz (Hridhu Haroon) travelled separately to secretly be with the latter. I am here for All We Imagine is Light when the jazzy piano score started going.
All We Imagine is Light is an epic containing few love stories, different kinds of that experience, as many of us, in the throes of it, feel the carnal side of it like Anu and Shiaz. But then there’s different expressions of it, when you don’t touch or say the names nor words. When one receives a gift, like Prabha from her arranged offscreen husband in Germany instead of him. When one stays up at night as Prabha does, thinking why can’t she love someone who’s closer by. There’s also the layers of emotions that she has about Anu, carrying them from Mumbai. Indian neorealism had its separate little moments for festival viewers and I hope that moment sticks this time.
- Rated: M
- Genre: Drama
- Release Date: 9/11/2024
- Directed by: Payal Kapadia
- Starring: Azees Nedumangad, Chhaya Kadam, Divya Prabha, Hridhu Haroon, Kani Kusruti, Tintumol Joseph
- Produced by: Frank Hoeve, Gilles Chanial, Julien Graff, Olivier Père, Ranabir Das, Roberto Minervini, Thomas Hakim, Zico Maitra
- Written by: Payal Kapadia
- Studio: Another Birth, ARTE France, Chalk and Cheese, Cinéma BALDR, Les Films Fauves, petit chaos, Pulpa Film
