All We Imagine As Light
In ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, the critically acclaimed fiction debut of Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, we follow nurse Prabha and her roommate and fellow nurse Anu. Prabha and Anu have a different approach to life and love, with Prabha being estranged from her husband who lives and works in Germany and Anu having a secret relationship with a Muslim man.
When Prabha’s husband contacts her after a long time, this stirs up confusion in Prabha’s humble life in Mumbai. She has come to accepts a quiet existence, while the younger Anu still dares to dream of more. When their colleague and widow Parvaty is evicted from her home by a large building company and is forced to return to her hometown, the three women travel to the small coastal village together to help Parvaty settle in. There, they discover that the peaceful and quiet surroundings also offers the space to express their desires. With the beautiful cinematography of Ranabir Das – who captures one of the most wonderful ending scenes in film – ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT shows that family doesn’t only exist in the form of blood kinship, but also in the shape of kindred spirits.
Kapadia’s docufiction A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING is also part of our programme.
With thanks to BOZAR, we welcome Payal Kapadia to Antwerp for an exceptional afternoon. After the screening of All We Imagine as Light—briefly introduced by Kapadia—there will be a masterclass. Professor of Visual Culture and Anthropology and specialist in Indian cinema and culture Paolo Silvio Harald Favero (University of Antwerp) will join Kapadia for an in-depth conversation about her filmmaking practice: her hybrid approach, and the political as well as poetic registers in which her cinema moves.
Her husband Ranabir Das (producer, cinematographer and editor)—who served as cinematographer and co-producer on both All We Imagine as Light and A Night of Knowing Nothing—will also take part in the discussion.
Showtimes
On 5 March, director Payal Kapadia will go into conversation (± 60') with Professor of Visual Culture and Anthropology and specialist in Indian visual culture Paolo Silvio Harald Favero about her film practice.
Payal Kapadia emerged in 2024 as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Indian cinema. With ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, she won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival—an exceptional accolade and a historic return of India to the main competition after a thirty-year absence. She was also the first Indian woman filmmaker to screen a film in the Cannes Competition.
Kapadia grew up in Mumbai and studied film direction at the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune. During and shortly after her studies, she made several short films that gained international recognition—work in which she already developed a layered, politically attuned film language, balancing documentary observation, poetry, and fiction.
Her talent surfaced early, and her short work laid the foundations for a cinema deeply rooted in Indian society—cinema that defies genres and blends political commentary and class struggle with folk myths and dreamlike escapes from reality. Her shorts, always poised between documentary, poetry, and fiction, travelled widely on the international festival circuit.
In the final phase of her studies, she began her first feature-length documentary, A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING, which premiered in 2021 at the Quinzaine des Cinéastes, where it won the Œil d’Or (Best Documentary). Shortly afterwards she made her first fiction feature, ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT, confirming her profile as an outspoken humanist filmmaker with a sharp eye for what rarely makes it on screen: labour, class, intimacy, and the quiet inequalities of city life.
