If movies are fated, All We Imagine as Light definitely was for Kani Kusruti. This, even before director Payal Kapadia had penned the story. Kusruti shares that the director, then a student at the Film & Television Institute of India, had reached out to her right after developing the idea. “Payal said she was thinking of me while developing the protagonist. She had liked my work in a short film. I just wanted to be a part of her film,” she smiles. 

In the Cannes Grand Prix-winning movie, Kusruti plays a nurse, Prabha, who develops an unlikely friendship with another nurse, Anu. She reveals that Kapadia had first chosen her for the role of Anu. “Then years passed [without the film going on floors]. Since I had aged, I thought the chance was gone. Then Payal asked me if I wanted to audition for Prabha.”