In this episode, we dove into All We Imagine As Light (2024) — a quiet, observational Indian arthouse drama that has taken the international film scene by storm. Directed by Payal Kapadia, the film follows two nurses in Mumbai as they navigate love, friendship, and the grind of daily life. It’s the first Indian film in decades to win the Grand Prix at Cannes, and it left us with a lot to unpack.

Adam opened the discussion by immediately calling this “the most film school movie we’ve ever watched.” The whole episode became a bit of a roast-meets-love-letter to the movie’s use of intimate cinematography, real locations, and deliberate pacing. Khilli praised the grounded realism — pointing out that everything from the hospital to the tram rides felt lived-in because they were real places they recognized from Mumbai.

But the real debate came down to vibes. Winnie and Nicky both admitted they respected the film more than they enjoyed it. Winnie straight-up said, “Reality sucks,” and lobbied for us to watch something with aliens or dancing next week. Nicky joked that the film looked like something their film professor would assign in class — which then turned into a full bit where Khilli became “Professor Khilli” lecturing about narrative visual language.

We spent a lot of time discussing the movie’s lighting and its evocative title — with Khilli explaining (between bouts of us all misunderstanding the word “seamen”) that the title was inspired by the way the sea reflects light from fishing boats. It was artsy. It was film-school-core. Adam joked that the movie was probably responsible for a 200% spike in young filmmakers googling “how to shoot realistic interiors.”

By the end of the episode, we all agreed that All We Imagine As Light was beautiful, impactful, and worth watching — once. But also that we needed to immediately counterbalance this with something ridiculous like Koi… Mil Gaya or a big dumb action movie. Because sometimes the real world is just too real.