TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2024
More than thirty years after Indian filmmaker Shaji Neelakantan Karun, had been selected for the competition section at Cannes Film Festival for his debut film ‘Piravi’ won the Caméra d’Or, filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s film ‘All We Imagine As Light’ will be featured in the main competition at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival that will be held from May 14 to 25, 2024. British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s debut feature, ‘Santosh’, has also been selected for the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section in 2024.
Payal’s film will be competing for the sought-after Palme d’Or along with some of the most celebrated names in world cinema: Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’, David Cronenberg’s ‘The Shrouds’, Paul Schrader’s ‘Oh Canada’, Sean Baker’s ‘Anora’, Yórgos Lánthimos’ ‘Kinds Of Kindness’ and Paulo Sorrentino’s ‘Parthenope’. An Indo-French production, ‘All We Imagine As Light’ follows the story of Prabha, a nurse, who receives an unexpected gift from her long estranged husband.
In 2021, Payal won the Golden Eye Award at Cannes for best documentary for ‘A Night of Not Knowing Nothing’ and her film ‘Afternoon Clouds’ was part of the Cinefondation section in 2017.
The Indian films which have been previously selected for Cannes’ competition section include Chetan Anand’s ‘Neecha Nagar’ (1946), V Shantaram’s ‘Amar Bhoopali’ (1952), Raj Kapoor’s ‘Awaara’ (1953), Satyajit Ray’s ‘Parash Pathar’ (1958), MS Sathyu’s ‘Garm Hava’ (1974) and Mrinal Sen’s Kharij (1983). ‘Neecha Nagar’ is the only Indian film that was awarded a Palme d’Or. The last Indian film to be make it to this coveted section was Shaji N Karun’s ‘Swaham’ in 1994.
