The highest award of the Cannes Film Festival, which is the most popular International Film Festival held annually in France, is the Palme d'Or which historically has been a benchmark of that particular year's Oscar and other big American award potentials. 

Palme d'Or was introduced in 1955, and before that from from 1939 to 1954, the festival's highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du Film. In 1946, Hindi film Neecha Nagar, written by Khwaja Ahmed Abbas, directed by Chetan Anand, based on a story by Hayatullah Ansari, won the Grand Prix, which in today's date is known as the Palme d’Or. 

L: Neecha Nagar (1946), Palme D'Or Winner R: All We Imagine As Light (2024), Grand Prix Winner  

Since then no other Indian film has won the Palme d'Or, or what has since become the runner-up prize i.e. the Grand Prix. At the Cannes Film Festival 2024, All We Imagine as Light - a Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi multilingual written and directed by Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia, and produced by companies from India, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and Italy, became the first movie from India to be nominated for the Palme d'Or since 1994. 

Although All We Imagine as Light lost to American filmmaker Sean Baker's Anora, Payal Kapadia ended up clinching the second prize which is the Grand Prix at Cannes 2024, and the first Indian female filmmaker to do so. Since this was India's first win in 30 years in the main competitions, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to his X page to congratulate Kapadia and her crew. 

India is proud of Payal Kapadia for her historic feat of winning the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival for her work ‘All We Imagine as Light’. An alumnus of FTII, her remarkable talent continues to shine on the global stage, giving a glimpse of the rich creativity in… pic.twitter.com/aMJbsbmNoE

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 26, 2024

All We Imagine As Light's Grand Prix win not just helps put one more movie and filmmaker from India at the center of International attention, it also boosts the 115-minute movie's prospects at all the main awards this year. 

PAYAL KAPADIA, lauréate du Grand Prix pour ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT.
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PAYAL KAPADIA, award winner of the Grand Prix for ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT.#Cannes2024 #Palmares #Awards #GrandPrix pic.twitter.com/nE16YOvLeC

— Festival de Cannes (@Festival_Cannes) May 25, 2024

All We Imagine As Light (2024) revolves around Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), who are are Malayali nurses living in Mumbai. Both are troubled by their relationships, and embark on a road trip to a beach town where "the mystical forest becomes a space for their dreams to manifest".