A luminous portrayal of lives less ordinary

THE profoundly contemplated and nimbly realized opening sequence of Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light makes a perfect prelude for the range of themes that her debut feature film strives to explore; it's like a shorthand or notation for all that sprawls in its core.

- NAMRATA JOSHI

The documentary footage captures the bustling megapolis of Mumbai and its bristling energy, bursting at its seams, teeming with people who have left their homes behind and migrated to it from near and far to find livelihood and life in its steely fold. There's the smorgasbord of languages and accents, cuisines and cultures bound by universally felt existential anxieties—the inability to call Mumbai home for the fear of having to leave it at some point, a place that liberates but holds you in thrall, that makes you hit the depths of loneliness but turns strangers into friends and family, that breaks your heart but also helps you forget the trauma and move on, a city that takes time away from you and forces you to get used to the reality of impermanence.