Cannes 2024: Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s film selected in competition section, here’s why it’s historic
This is historic. Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light has been selected for the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the prestigious Competition section. This is the first Indian film to have qualified in the competition section in 30 years.
Kapadia is best known for her acclaimed documentary A Night of Knowing Nothing, which won the Oeil d’or (Golden Eye) award at the 2021 edition of the Cannes Film Festival. The film premiered under the Director’s Fortnight section. Kapadia’s 2017 film Afternoon Clouds too had been showcased at Cannes in the Short Film category.
On Thursday, the official X page of the Cannes Film Festival shared a list of the films from across the world that will be screened under the Competition section.
“ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT – Payal KAPADIA #Competition #Cannes2024,” the festival said in a post.
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Kapadia’s film will be presented under the segment alongside 19 highly anticipated titles, including Kinds of Kindness by Yorgos Lanthimos, Megalopolis by Francis Ford Coppola, Oh Canada by Paul Scrader, Bird by Andrea Arnold, The Shrouds by David Cronenberg, and Anora by Sean Baker.
Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act will be the opening film at the 77th edition of the festival.
The Un Certain Regard section of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival will showcase Santosh by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri which stars actress Shahana Goswami in the lead.
The last Indian film to compete for the coveted Palme d’Or award was Malayalam film Swaham by director Shaji N Karun in 1994. The film had lost to Pulp Fiction that year. Legendary filmmaker Mrinal Sen’s Kharij had also competed in the same section in 1983. Before that, films like MS Sathyu’s Garm Hava (1974), Satyajit Ray’s Parash Pathar (1958), Raj Kapoor’s Awaara (1953), V Shantaram’s Amar Bhoopali (1952) and Chetan Anand’s Neecha Nagar (1946) were selected for Cannes’ Competition segment.
The film gala will run from May 14 to May 25.
(With agency inputs)
