New Delhi: Payal Kapadia’s film ‘All We Imagine As Light’ created history by winning the prestigious Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Payal was present at the awards ceremony held on the last day of the Cannes 2024 festival along with actors including Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam. But did you know, this is not the first time India has won this title!
The Cannes Film Festival was first scheduled to begin in 1939, but Germany’s invasion of Poland led to the outbreak of World War II. When the festival resumed in 1946, Indian cinema also participated in large numbers. In the spirit of post-war peace and reconciliation, the competition jury awarded the top prize, then the Grand Prix, to films from 11 of the 18 countries represented that year, including India.
Chetan Anand’s social-realist drama Neecha Nagar won the Grand Prix and the country was a regular in the competition for at least a decade. The film that put India on the Cannes map was the first feature film of director Satyajit Ray, whose film Pather Panchali won the outright honour of Best Human Document.
India has finally broken its 30-year hiatus with Mumbai-based filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s ambitious fiction feature debut All We Imagine As Light. Shot over the last 25 days of summer in Mumbai, this Malayalam-Hindi feature film tells the story of Prabha, a Mumbai nurse, and her roommate Anu. The film won the award, the festival’s second most prestigious prize after the Palme d’Or, during the closing ceremony of the 77th edition.
The main competition jury was chaired by filmmaker Greta Gerwig and also included Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona, Turkish actor-screenwriter Ebru Ceylan, Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino, American actor Lily Gladstone, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lebanese actor-director Nadine Labaki, and French stars Eva Green and French actor Omar Sy.
