Asian Film Awards 2025: All We Imagine As Light wins Best Film honours

Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light, Santosh star Shahana Goswami and its director Sandhya Suri bag top awards at the Asian Film Awards 2025. The awards were held on Sunday in Hong Kong

At the 18th Asian Film Awards 2025, held on March 16 at the Xiqu Centre in Hong Kong, filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s highly praised film All We Imagine As Light and the Hindi movie Santosh, starring Shahana Goswami and directed by Sandhya Suri, earned top honours.

 

All We Imagine As Light won the prestigious Best Film prize, and the Asian Film Awards published the winners on their official website. Teki Cometh (Japan), Black Dog (China), Exhuma (South Korea), and Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In (Hong Kong) were among the films the movie competed with.

2025 Asian Film Awards: All We Imagine As Light wins best film

On its official website, the Asian Film Awards shared the winners’ list. Being recognised for her film in a "wonderful place for cinema" like Hong Kong was a unique experience, according to Kapadia, who also took home the Grand Prix Award for All We Imagine… at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival. 

 

"We have such amazing work coming out of Asia and we are so proud to be part of that community. And, especially here, because the community is celebrated and I think that it is really important for us to look at all the cinema from Asia and to be part of that... It was already special to be nominated. It's so great to win this award," the filmmaker stated to the reporters in a backstage interview. 

 

Last year, All We Imagine…, an official co-production between France and India, made history by becoming the first Indian film to win the Grand Prix Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), two Keralan nurses, and their friend and cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam) navigate life and love in Mumbai in this popular Malayalam-Hindi film.

Asian Film Awards 2025: ‘Santosh’ won several awards 

For her performance in Santosh, Goswami received the Best Actress award, and Suri took home the Best New Director trophy. The actor claimed that the experience of working on Santosh was pleasant.

 

Goswami said, "The challenging part was to believe that I could play the part, because I was very nervous about playing the character and feeling like I was acting. And I didn't want it to seem like I was acting, I wanted it to feel real... You always have this imposter syndrome. Things like this (trophy) help when you realise that 'Oh maybe you didn't do such a bad job'. So now I have a little bit more confidence in myself". 

 

Santosh centers on Goswami, a recently widowed housewife who takes over her late husband's position as a police constable and is entangled in the murder inquiry of a little girl. India, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany collaborated on its production.

Asian Film Awards 2025: Other nominees 

Other nominees in the Best Actress category were Sylvia Chang (Daughter’s Daughter), Kani Kusruti (All We Imagine…), Kawai Yuumi (Desert of Namibia), and Kim Go-eun (Exhuma). Suri, a British-Indian filmmaker, bested Yamanaka Yoko (Desert of Namibia), Sora Neo (Happyend), Dong Zijian (My Friend An Delie), and Truong Minh Quý (Viêt and Nam) in the Best New Director category.