Kapadia’s first fully narrative film, “All We Imagine as Light,” begins more like a documentary, surveying Mumbai, particularly at night, before gently gravitating toward three women, all of them hospital workers, who are juggling their workaday realities, and those of India’s stratified society, with their own aspirations.

O n May 26, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated filmmaker Payal Kapadia on the Cannes success of All We Imagine as Light, her drama slated for U.S. release on Nov. 15. Not only was it the first Indian film to play in competition at Cannes in 30 years,