DESI DIARY

ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT IN THEATRES ON NOVEMBER 22

All We Imagine as Light, Payal Kapadia’s award-winning poetic drama.

Films We Like, the Canadian distributors of the award-winning film All We Imagine as Light by Payal Kapadia, announced that the film will be opening theatrically in limited theatres in Canada on November 22, as well as in India.

All We Imagine as Light is about two nurses escape the city buzz of Mumbai to the tranquility of the seaside. In the center of Mumbai, one of the largest urban centers in the world, there’s no such thing as being alone, yet it can still feel lonely. For two nurses, Anu and Prabha, the city takes time away from them. Taking buses and trains to get to work, passing by thousands of people every day, never connecting with any of them. This disconnect extends to their romantic lives, as Prabha feels abandoned by her husband, who out of nowhere decided to move to Germany to work, and as Anu enters into a new relationship, but finds it impossible to find anywhere to be free from the prying eyes of the city. Part-tone poem, part-city symphony, All We Imagine as Light is an ode to the working class women of Mumbai.

Arguably the most important moment for Indian cinema on the world stage since Lagaan was an Oscar-nominee in 2001, or possibly even since Satyajit Ray won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1957.

This year, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light was the first Indian film to play in the Cannes Competition since 1994, winning the Grand Prix of the festival. This major award signals one of the most striking and exciting new voices in Indian cinema, a true artist breaking out with her very first narrative feature film.

All We Imagine as Light is a film of quiet beauty, a movie that turns the constant buzz of a metropolis like Mumbai into the quiet backdrop of the lives of two women who work to live, fitting their lives in into the small amount of time between the late-shifts at the hospital.

With a dream-like atmosphere created by its jazzy piano score, and almost surreal images of the city of dreams, All We Imagine as Light is Indian cinema like you’ve never seen it before.