Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light in Cannes 2024’s competition section

Payal Kapadia

's All We Imagine As Light has been selected for the 2024

Cannes Film Festival

in the prestigious

Competition section

.
'India and China are making a marked comeback at Cannes'
During a press conference on Thursday,

Thierry Frémaux

, Cannes’s artistic director, and president Iris Knobloch announced the films.
Frémaux spoke about

Indian cinema

at Cannes and said, "Historically, China and India are important markets for films.

They are making a marked comeback to Cannes."

Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light is a co-production between India and France, and the film tells the story of two nurses from Kerala who work in a nursing home in Mumbai.
In 2021, her acclaimed documentary "A Night of Knowing Nothing" won the Oeil d'or (Golden Eye) award and premiered under the Director's Fortnight section.
Sandhya Suri's feature debut, Santosh, starring Shahana Goswami, has been selected for Un Certain Regard. The film is backed by international producers such as Good Chaos in the UK and Haut et Court in France.

India’s journey at Cannes

India’s journey at Cannes started when Chetan Anand's film Neecha Nagar won the festival’s highest award, the Grand Prix award (now known as the Palme d’Or). He was also the first Indian to be invited as a jury member for Cannes in 1950 (he refused it).
Over the years, from Mrinal Sen to Vidya Balan, have served on the Cannes jury, and Aishwarya Rai to Sonam Kapoor have represented India on the red carpet, but Indian films' selection in competition categories has been missing since the 90s.
During the 50s, Satyajit Ray's film Pather Panchali and Bimal Roy's Do Bigha Zamin - won prestigious jury awards at Cannes. In 1988, Mira Nair won the Camera d’Or for Salaam Bombay.
In recent years, films such as Gangs of Wassepur, Peddlers, and Lunchbox have been screened at the Director’s Fortnight or at International Critics' Week. In 2022, Delhi-based filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s documentary All That Breathes won the L’Oeil d’Or – the top documentary award at Cannes.
At Cannes last year, Anurag Kashyap's Kennedy, starring Rahul Bhat, Sunny Leone, and Abhilash Thapliyal, was chosen for the Midnight Screenings section of the festival. Kanu Behl's Agra was screened in the Director's Fortnight section at the 76th Cannes ceremony.
To date, Neecha Nagar remains the only Indian film to have won the Palme d'Or - the top prize at Cannes. The last Indian film to compete for the coveted Palm d'Or at the prestigious gala was Shaji N. Karun's "Swaham" in 1994.