All We Imagine As Light@Cannes: Payal Kapadia's movie receives rave reviews

The 77th Cannes Film Festival is coming to an end with the winners to be announcedby the Jury in the Debussy Theatre on May 24.This year, Indians have a lot of hope with Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light.

Kapadia's emotional drama is in the race to win the Palme d'Or award, the highest honour at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie is also the first Indian film to be selected in the competition section at Cannes in 30 years. It's also thefirst film by an Indian woman filmmaker to compete.

On May 23, the film premiered at the Grand Theatre at Cannes and received a thunderous response. The film got a rousing eight-minute standing ovation.

Kani Kusruti lends support to Palestine, Hridhu Haroon takes veshti to Cannes

What is All We Imagine As LightAbout?

Directed by Payal Kapadia, the movie tells the story of two nurses Prabha and Anu, living in Mumbai. The official synopsis of the movie reads, ''Prabha's daily routine is disrupted when she receives an unexpected gift from her estranged husband. Meanwhile, her younger roommate, Anu, struggles to find a private place in the city to be intimate with her boyfriend. A getaway to a beach town provides them with the opportunity to fulfil their desires in a secluded setting.''

The movie features Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam and Hridhu Haroon.

All We Imagine As Light actors dance on the red carpet as the film premieres at Cannes. Watch

First Reactions

The first reactions to the movie are out, and it has received glowing reviews from some of the biggest media houses. Praising Kapadia's movie, critics have called it beautiful, glorious, and a dreamlike modern Mumbai tale.

Here are all the reviews

The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw wrote in his review. ''a dreamlike and gentle modern Mumbai tale is a triumph.''

''Payal Kapadia’s glorious Cannes competition selection is an absorbing story of three nurses that is full of humanity. There is a freshness and emotional clarity in Payal Kapadia’s Cannes competition selection, an enriching humanity and gentleness which coexist with fervent, languorous eroticism and finally something epiphanic in the later scenes and mysterious final moments,'' Bradshaw wrote.

Variety's Jessica Kiang called the movie, '' a glowing Portrait of Urban Connection and Unexpected Sisterhood.''

''The film’s title is only ever obliquely explained, in a story someone tells of a factory worker so exploited by his workplace’s gruelingly long shifts that at times he could barely remember what the daylight looked like. But at the gentle resolve of “All We Imagine as Light” — which is nothing so strained as a neat wrap-up,'' she writes.

Indiewire's Sophie Monks Kaufman wrote, ''It is a testament to how Kapadia has drummed up sensory experience from the minutiae of daily life that we are able to exist within Prabha’s dreams.''

Schreendaily's Fionnuala Halligan wrote, ''If it’s a surprise that it’s all so beautiful for Kapadia’s lenses, it’s also a relief that it’s all so natural. She’s certainly besotted with the lavenders and blues of the nurses uniforms and billowing saris – on the clothes line or drying in the breeze of an open window – and their are times when the very monsoon seems to be shedding purple tears. But, like the main protagonist Prabha, this is a serious film which refuses to be distracted by an easy colour-pop.''