India’s Payal Kapadia Creates History at Cannes, Wins Grand Prix Award

Mumbai: Filmmaker Payal Kapadia made history at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival as her film ‘All We Imagine As Light’ won the prestigious Grand Prix Award.

This debut directorial venture of Kapadia became the first Indian film in three decades and the first ever by an Indian women director to be part of the festival’s main competition. The film’s screening garnered an eight-minute standing ovation.

Before this, she won the Golden Eye award at Cannes for her documentary ‘A Night of Knowing Nothing’.

It was a triple feat for Indian talent at Cannes as ‘Sunflowers Were the First Ones’ to Know by FTII student Chidananda S Naik, and Anasuya Sengupta of ‘The Shameless’ fame won major awards in each of the three competitive sections of the prestigious film festival.

The 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival concluded on Saturday evening.