Indian Films, Foreign Flags: A Quest for Oscar Glory

Payal Kapadia’s ‘All We Imagine as Light’ to represent France and U.K. Selects ‘Santosh’ as International Feature Submission at Oscars 2025

Official poster of “All we Imagine as Light”

Payal Kapadia becomes the first Indian woman to compete in the main event of Cannes when her film All We Imagine as Light wins the Grand Prix at Cannes 2024. This is a historic moment for Indian filmmakers. The film is also shortlisted for the 2025 Oscars and is going to represent France in the race which is unfortunately a disappointing news for Indian viewers who praises the film.

An alumna of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Kapadia made her directing debut with this film and won accolades for the nation. Her accomplishments are noteworthy as she is the first Indian woman filmmaker to have both graced the festival’s main competition and won the Grand Prix.

Two Mumbai-based Malayali nurses’ lives are recounted in the film. Key characters in it include Tintumol Joseph, Hridhu Haroon, Divya Prabha, Chhaya Kadam, Azees Nedumangad, and Kani Kusruti.

Screengrabs of All We Imagine as Light (2024)

In addition to being the first film directed by an Indian woman, All We Imagine As Light was the first Indian film to be screened in the main competition for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 30 years. A standing ovation lasting eight minutes was given to the film during its May 23 screening.

Santosh Official Poster of SANTOSH (2024)

In the best international feature category of the 2025 Oscars, the U.K. has chosen Santosh to represent the country, an Indian police procedural directed by Sandhya Suri.

Starring as the title character Santosh is Shahana Goswami, a determined young Hindu widow who, as a result of a government program, takes over her husband’s profession as a police constable. Even as she grows accustomed to working with tough-minded senior investigator Inspector Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) on a violent murder case involving a teenage girl from the lower caste Dalit community, she finds herself enmeshed in institutional corruption.

Santosh made its debut this year at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard division before Metrograph Pictures swiftly snapped it up for North America. Singling out Suri’s writing for praise, The Hollywood Reporter termed the film “gripping and engrossing.” “Instead of using cumbersome explanatory dialogue, Suri uses dialogue between Santosh and Sharma to highlight the forces that could push these two women into a reluctant Faustian alliance, such as a discriminatory society and a corrupt workplace.”

Screengrabs of SANTOSH (2024)

After her breakthrough documentary I For India (2005) and her short drama The Field, which won best international short in Toronto in 2018 and was nominated for a 2019 BAFTA, Suri makes her narrative feature debut with Santosh.