Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light shortlisted by France for Oscars

All We Imagine as Light, which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, has been shortlisted by France to represent the country at the 2025 Oscars. The film tells the story of two Malayali nurses living in Mumbai and is written and directed by Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia. She had previously won the best documentary award for her film A Night of Knowing Nothing at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. 

All We Imagine as Light is one of the four films shortlisted by France alongside Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Perez, which won two awards at Cannes. The other films are The Count of Monte Cristo, a film adapted from Alexandre Dumas’ classic of the same name, and Alain Guiraudie’s Misericordia.

Speaking to Variety, All We Imagine As Light co-producer Zico Maitra expressed his interest for the film to represent India at the Academy Awards. “While the film’s themes are global, this is a story about Mumbai and the lives of women in that city. It would be a great honour to represent our home country, India, at the Academy Awards. We think it could be a source of great joy for India in the way we felt it was after the film won the Grand Prix at Cannes,” he added.

The film secured distribution deals in most countries, including France and the US, weeks ago. It was only last week that Spirit Media, owned by Telugu actor Rana Daggubatti, secured the deal in India, making All We Imagine As Light eligible for Indian representation at Oscars. 

According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the country that submits a film must be able to prove that creative control of the film was largely in the hands of citizens or residents of that country. The main producer of All We Imagine As Light, Julian Graff, told Variety that France’s Oscar committee sees the film as an outsider considering the competition. 

“If All We Imagine As Light is selected by India, all producers would be happy. It seems that the films picked by India’s Oscar committees were not always the ones people expected. So we are just being cautious. We are curious to know how the movie will be judged by both committees,” Graff added.