Payal Kapadia's Cannes winner 'All We Imagine As Light' to release on November 22

Mumbai, Oct 17 (PTI) "All We Imagine As Light", Payal Kapadia's Cannes-winning title, will be released in theatres across India on November 22, the filmmaker announced on Thursday.

The film, which scripted history by becoming the first film from India ever to win the Grand Prix award at the Cannes Film Festival in May, is distributed by Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media in India and released in select theatres in Kerala in September.

"All We Imagine As Light", Kapadia's first feature directorial, recently released in France and Italy and is now headed to theatres in the UK and the US next month.

"This film has been years in the making, and with our partnership with Spirit Media, I am incredibly excited for the next phase. It is for the first time that a film of mine will be released in theatres and Indian audiences will finally be able to buy tickets and experience it on a big screen, where cinema truly comes to life," Kapadia told reporters at a press conference.

Daggubati said they are excited to bring "this incredible film to Indian theatres". "At Spirit Media, we are committed to bringing unique and meaningful stories to audiences across the country. Payal has made a beautiful film, and we can’t wait to share it with Indian audiences," he added.

“All We Imagine as Light”, a Malayalam-Hindi feature, is about Prabha, a nurse, who receives an unexpected gift from her long estranged husband that throws her life into disarray. Her younger roommate, Anu, tries in vain to find a private spot in the big city to be alone with her boyfriend.

One day the two nurses go on a road trip to a beach town with their friend Parvati where the mystical forest becomes a space for their dreams to manifest, according to the official plotline.

Kapadia, an FTII graduate, said the film formed in her mind while she was in "different hospital situations" with two of her family members but it took her five years to complete the story.

"I wanted to make a film about women who are in the working space and the hospital provides a good kind of environment to have multiple issues that you can bring up, so I felt it would be the right space to make a film. But as I started researching more and the city came in in a big way that I realized that I wanted to make a much longer film and it took many years then to write the script and do more research and raise funding for it." The film will be available in th all major cities, including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Kochi, Thiruvantanapuram and Kolkata.

Starring Kani Kusruti, Divya Prabha and Chhaya Kadam, the film is an official Indo-French co-production between petit chaos from France and Chalk & Cheese and Another Birth from India.

"All We Imagine As Light" will open the Mumbai MAMI film festival tomorrow. PTI