In one of the world’s most populated cities, two brothers — Nadeem and Saud — devote their lives to the quixotic effort of protecting the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to the ecosystem of New Delhi that has been falling from the sky at alarming rates. Amid environmental toxicity and social unrest, the ‘kite brothers’ spend day and night caring for the creatures in their makeshift avian basement hospital. Director Shaunak Sen explores the connection between the kites and the brothers who help them return to the skies, offering a mesmerizing chronicle of inter-species coexistence.
Press
“There is no denying the movie’s power”
Manohla Dargis for THE NEW YORK TIMES
“All That Breathes is a subtle, haunting reflection on the meaning of humanity”
A.O. Scott for THE NEW YORK TIMES
“A remarkable, vital piece of cinema”
SIGHT AND SOUND
“A stone-cold masterpiece”
Rahul Desai for FILM COMPANION
“A soaring visual masterpiece”
READER
Awards
Academy Awards (Oscars), USA, Nominated for Best Documentary Feature (pending) – 2023
Sundance Film Festival, USA, Winner of World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary – 2022
Cannes Film Festival, France, Winner of L’Œil d’or, le prix du documentaire – 2022
London Film Festival, UK, Winner of Grierson Award – 2022
Gotham Independent Film Awards, USA, Winner of of Best Documentary – 2022
Director's Biography
Shaunak Sen is a filmmaker based in New Delhi, India. Cities of Sleep (2016), his first feature-length documentary, was shown at various major international film festivals and won 6 international awards. Shaunak received the IDFA Bertha Fund (2019), the Sundance Documentary Grant (2019), the Catapult Film Fund (2020), the Charles Wallace Grant, the Sarai CSDS Digital Media fellowship (2014), and the Films Division of India fellowship (2013). He was also a visiting scholar at Cambridge University (2018) and has published academic articles in Bioscope, Widescreen and other journals.