Payal Kapadia’ s All We Imagine As Light will be first Indian film to compete at Cannes Film Festival in 30 years

Interestingly, Kapadia is one of the four female directors in competition. The number was seven last year.

Kapadia is not new to the festival on the French Riviera, once seductively described as the “playground for the rich and the famous”. In 2021, her A Night of Not Knowing Nothing won the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary playing in the Director’s Fortnight, an important Cannes sidebar. About campus trouble, the plot unfolds through letters written by a student to her lover. Earlier in 2017, Kapadia's Afternoon Clouds was part of the Cinefondation section, which also takes place during the Festival along with the Critics' Week and Director’s Fortnight.

Kapadia (30) will be aiming for the coveted Palme d'Or along with some of the most celebrated names in world cinema: Francis Ford Coppola (Megalopolis), Sean Baker (Anora), Yórgos Lánthimos (Kinds Of Kindness), David Cronenberg (The Shrouds), Andrea Arnold (Bird), Paul Schrader (Oh Canada) Jacques Audiard (Emilia Perez) and Paulo Sorrentino (Parthenope) to mention some.