Filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s reviews, All V Imagine Az Light, and Hindi film Santosh, starring Shahna Goswami and directed by Sandhya Suri, received the top honors at the 18th Asian Film Awards 2025. The award ceremony was held on 16 March at Zik Center, Hong Kong.

We all imagine that Light won the Best Film Award, as declared on the official website of the Asian Film Awards. The film competed with China from Black Dog, South Korea from Xuhuma, Japan from Taiki cometh, and The Warriors’ twilight: Hong Kong with walls.

Payal Kapadia expressed happiness over being honored in Hong Kong, in a place which he described as “amazing for cinema”. He emphasized the importance of celebrating Asian cinema and expressed pride in being a part of the community.

We all imagine that Light is a Malayalam-Hindi film that follows two nurses, Prabha and Anu from Kerala, as they navigate life and love in Mumbai with their friends and cook Parveti. The film made history as the first Indian title to win the Grand Prix Award in Cannes.

He said, “We have such amazing tasks coming out of Asia, and we are proud to be a part of that community. And especially here because the community is celebrated, and I think it is really important to see and be a part of all cinema from Asia. It was already special to be specially nominated. It is very good to win the award.”

The film is streaming on prime video.

On the other hand, actor Shahna Goswami was awarded the best actress for her role in 2024 crime-thriller Santosh. The film also gave the best new director award to filmmaker Sandhya Suri.

Goswami described the experience of working on satisfaction as a pleasant journey, despite the early veins about his performance.

He shared, “The challenging part was to believe that I could play the role, because I was very nervous about playing and feeling the character as I was acting.

Goswami continued, “You always have this impotent syndrome. Such things (trophy) help when you know that ‘Oh maybe you haven’t done so bad work’. So now I have a little more confidence in myself.”

Streaming, Santosh, on Prime Video, tells the story of a new widow housewife, who takes the job of her late husband as a police constable and gets caught in the investigation of the murder of a young girl. The film is a joint production that includes India, United Kingdom, France and Germany.