by Anthony Frajman

Since its debut at Sundance, where it won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary, Shaunak Sen’s documentary All That Breathes has made waves around the world, winning the 2022 L’Oeil d’Or at Cannes, the festival’s top prize for documentaries, amongst numerous other accolades.

Filmed over three years, entirely in his home city of New Delhi, the film follows brothers Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who attempt to save the dwindling population of black kite birds, which are falling out of the sky due to the city’s pollution levels.

At AIDC, FilmInk caught up with Sen.

The brothers at the heart of All That Breathes had been the focus of several articles. What was it that you saw in them that made you want to make the film?

“I was interested because firstly, the tiny, grubby industrial basement that they work in is inherently very cinematic. I was aesthetically interested in their world. I think they’re like philosophers. I was interested in them conceptually. And I was interested in the emotional questions that underwrite their life and in understanding why they do what they do. And none of those things had ever been expansively dealt with. It was clear to me that I wouldn’t at all have a problem in terms of novelty. There was enough substance there to make a longform [documentary].

“I was interested in the kind of texture of their life, which became a kind of metaphor for life in Delhi and some of the broader, more zoomed out questions of human, non-human entanglement or neighbourliness or kinship between human, non-human life. And they became a kind of vector through which to enter this. I was sure of that, not so much about whether I wanted to do just a film about them.

“I was certain that I wanted those three threads to simultaneously run throughout the film, which is the ecological, the political, and the emotional; and the emotional nerve centre anchoring the whole structure is really their relationship. It adds a depth and the whole question is an exploration of why they do what they do. It was mysterious to me, and I was interested in opening it up more.”

You’ve said you were conscious not to make an overtly environmental film or a political film. How challenging was it not to fall into one or the other? 

“The thing is, I wanted it to zoom out from being just a sweet film about the bird hospital. The brothers are interesting because they make us think about the entanglement of human, non-human life. And for that, the (breadth) of animals that you see in the film, like the birds, rats, horses, pigs, and so on, is to show kind of life at large on the canvas of the city, which makes you think of simultaneity or the neighbourliness between human, non-human life. So, you needed this to be about urban ecology, as much about all that breeds than just about the birds.

“I wanted to avoid the trite cliches of a wildlife doc. I had no experience nor any ambition for it. I wanted to avoid a film that places the social or the political in its front and centre because I think that anything that is moralistic or pedantic just doesn’t stick.”

Delhi is obviously a huge part of the film. How conscious of this were you during filming?

“My previous film was called Cities of Sleep, where I looked at the city of Delhi

through the lens of sleep. And this film, I located through the lens of birds or non-human life. A city entirely disaggregates itself, when you look at it through a particular prism. All of us in the team are from Delhi. We are all embedded in the city’s vernacular or colloquial questions. I don’t know if I could’ve made this film in any other city.

“It’s a bit of a cliche. I hate saying it, but the city is a character. I hate it. But here, the thing is that this city is a glomeration of human beings and non-human life in which certain animals have successful urban careers and improvised well while others die. The point of the film is to show how non-human life is not a passive, pitiful receptacle of human action, but is also improvising and adjusting and adapting, some successfully, some not.”

In the film, it seems like you had complete access to the brothers. How involved were they in the process?

“They would often suggest scenes. They would often see different scenes on the edit. And so, they were, I suppose, interlocutors. But at the same time, I have to hold onto my editorial autonomy. This is not an N Geo film or a hagiography. So, beyond that point, I don’t want too much intervention either. Of course, we deferred when there were questions of safety. But beyond that, the creative treatment, I need to hold onto my autonomy.”

You had quite a long edit on the film. Can you tell us about this?

“We edited in India for about five months, and then, simultaneous to the shoot, and then went to Copenhagen to edit for another five, six months, and then went into the sound and the colour and the sound mix and so on. The colour happened in India. The foley happened in Japan, and the sound mix happened in Copenhagen. It was all at the same time, utterly discombobulating, but in a good way, where you need it to be like that because you’re chasing the Sundance deadline. I’m very technically minded and interested in these things, in terms of paying attention to these minutiae, because the granular detail of all these things really affects the experience of it, the sensorial experience of it. So, we were all very involved and all of these things.”

What have the brothers made of the response to the film?  

“They’ve been traveling a lot with the film. All three of them came to Cannes. Nadeem has now gone to almost as many film festivals as I have. He went to Australia, Krakow, Cannes, came to New York twice, went to BAFTAs. All three came to the Oscars. They’re thrilled doing that. I think they would like more donations coming in. Some have been trickling in since it was up on HBO recently. Our producers are very kindly funding the Bird Hospital for a year, so it helps with a baseline survival thing, but of course, they’re still hoping that people are moved to contribute. But having said that, you don’t simplistically overstate what a film can do for characters. It’s not like a film in one sweep just changes people’s lives. So, I hope it provides a kind of oasis and at least a kind of passing alleviation.”

What do you want audiences to take away from the film?

“I think the brothers’ approach to the world and how they conceive of entanglement and, all of that, how they think of non-human life, and an attitude towards climate change that is stoic and unsentimental and has resilience.”

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