'All We Imagine As Light', 'Citadel: Honey Bunny' lose out at Critics Choice Awards

Los Angeles: Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light lost in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 30th annual Critics Choice Awards, with the honour going to France’s "Emilia Perez".

The awards ceremony, organised by the Critics Choice Association (CCA) on Friday evening, also saw Citadel: Honey Bunny, starring Varun Dhawan and Samantha Ruth Prabhu, miss out on the Best Foreign Language Series award, which went to Netflix's blockbuster South Korean series Squid Game.

All We Imagine As Light, which charted history by becoming the first Indian title to win the Grand Prix Award at the Cannes Film Festival last year, had been nominated alongside Latvia's Flow, Ireland's Kneecap, Brazil's I'm Still Here, and Germany's The Seed of the Sacred Fig, directed by dissident Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof.

The Malayalam-Hindi film, which marks Kapadia's feature directorial debut, follows two nurses Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha) from Kerala navigating life and love in Mumbai along with their friend and cook Parvaty (Chhaya Kadam).

All We Imagine As Light, an official India-French co-production, had also received nominations for Best Motion Picture Non-English Language and the Best Direction - Motion Picture at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards but did not secure any wins.

The movie was recently named the Best International Film by New York Film Critics Circle and won an award in the same category at the Gotham Awards.

In the Best Foreign Language Series category, Citadel: Honey Bunny was competing against Squid Game as well as Acapulco, La Máquina, The Law According to Lidia Poet, My Brilliant Friend, Pachinko and Senna.

Citadel: Honey Bunny is the India chapter of the global spy franchise Citadel.

The show also stars Kay Kay Menon, Simran, Soham Majumdar, Shivankit Parihar, Kashvi Majmundar, Saquib Saleem and Sikandar Kher in pivotal roles.

The 30th Critics Choice Awards were hosted by Chelsea Handler. The awards gala live streamed on Lionsgate Play in India.