All We Imagine As Light’: Discourse as Soft Power

Abstract

In winning the Grand Prix at Cannes 2024, Payal Kapadia’s ‘All we Imagine as Light’ ended a spell of thirty- year drought for Indian cinema in the competitive section. This paper intends to use this pivotal moment to examine issues of cultural import within the larger spectrum of where the film was made ie the East and its validation in the West through the award at Cannes. Considering the Grand Prix as an inflection point for Indian cinema, this paper seeks to explore India’s soft power through a focus on media narrative that this film has generated in the Global North. To be precise, texts carried in news and magazine publications of the West, ie North America and United Kingdom will be scrutinised through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism to read and analyse the discourse around the film.