All We Imagine As Light - Profundity Found in Passers By
Written by Zoe Crombie
Though we tend to think of documentaries in a different category to the dominant fiction film format, in actuality they really aren’t all that different. Both take footage, staged or otherwise, and form it into a consumable narrative through editing – in the case of documentary, it just happens to reflect real life (or not in some circumstances). So when a documentary filmmaker moves to fiction film, what we see brought over isn’t just a commitment to depicting life as it happens, but the an understanding of authenticity and how to convey it visually.
The first fiction feature of filmmaker Payal Kapadia, All We Imagine as Light is an ode to Mumbai that feels every bit as real as her documentary work. Interweaving the lives of three women in Mumbai who all work at the same hospital – a setting that in most media brings together people of all kinds at their most vulnerable – Kapadia tracks their ups and downs through a humanist lens in the chaos of one of the most populous cities on Earth.
All We Imagine as Light is a beautiful ode to mundanity that recognises the colossal complexity of all whom we might pass by in our daily lives.
See All We Imagine As Light between 6th - 12th December
