One of the most beautiful films you will see in 2025, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light is showing at the moment at the BFI Southbank, as part of the BFI’s ongoing commitment to screening the best independent New Releases.

Described in the helpful BFI readout as an “urban film poet”, Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light masterfully captures the textures of Mumbai: its crowded apartments, fluorescent-lit hospital corridors, and the rare moments of solitude its characters carve out for themselves. The cinematography reminds the viewer of Italian Neorealism (which the BFI showcased last year) by utilising naturalistic lighting and handheld camerawork to enhance the film’s sense of intimacy. Mumbai isn’t just a backdrop; it’s an active presence, the stage for which the stories of those in front of the camera are playing out.

Kapadia focuses on telling the story of two nurses, Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), who navigate personal and societal constraints while working in the bustling chaos of a hospital. Prabha is a reserved woman whose marriage is strained, weighed down by tradition and unspoken disappointments. Anu, younger and more free-spirited, is in love with a man her family wouldn’t approve of. Their lives, though different, are connected by a shared sense of displacement and quiet resilience.

What makes All We Imagine As Light stand out is its tenderness. It’s a film about women who often go unnoticed, whose struggles aren’t grand or melodramatic but deeply personal and universal. Kapadia has a knack for capturing the rhythm of everyday life, and in doing so, she creates something deeply affecting.

This isn’t a film that rushes to deliver resolutions. Instead, it lingers on the in-between spaces: the longing glances, the silences, the quiet gestures of care. It trusts the audience to sit with its characters, to feel their frustrations and hopes. And in that, it finds a rare kind of magic.

Reviewed as part of the BFI New Releases at BFI Southbank.