Payal Kapadia’s film All We Imagine As Light has made India proud by receiving a nomination at the BAFTA Awards. At the BAFTA Film Awards, the film earned a nomination in the Best Film Not in the English Language category. The nominations were announced on Wednesday by actors Mia McKenna-Bruce and Will Sharpe.
While Payal’s film was longlisted in three categories—Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Not in the English Language—it ultimately secured only one nomination. Payal missed out on nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Competing against All We Imagine As Light in the same category are Emilia Perez, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, I’m Still Here, and Kneecap.
Previously, Payal Kapadia was nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globe Awards but lost to Brady Corbet for his work on The Brutalist. All We Imagine As Light was also nominated for Best Film Not in the English Language at the Golden Globes, but lost to Emilia Perez.
All We Imagine As Light tells the poignant story of two Malayali nurses, Prabha and Anu. Prabha’s life takes an unexpected turn when her estranged husband sends her a surprise gift, while Anu grapples with finding a private place for intimacy with her lover.
Directed by Payal Kapadia, the film features performances by Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, and Hridhu Haroon. The film launched its awards campaign after winning the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival in May and is now available for streaming on Disney+ Hotstar in India, where it premiered on January 3.
Significantly, All We Imagine As Light is only the seventh Indian film to be nominated in this category and the first in over a decade since Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox (2013), starring Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur.
The first Indian film to receive a nomination in this category was Salaam Bombay! (1988), directed by Mira Nair, who also earned India its second nomination with Monsoon Wedding (2001). Other Indian films that have received nominations over the years include Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas (2002), Asif Kapadia’s The Warrior (2002), and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti (2006).
The BAFTA Film Awards will be streamed live and exclusively in India on Lionsgate Play on February 16.