The first film to ever win both the Grand Jury Prize (World Cinema) at Sundance and the Best Documentary Prize at Cannes, Shaunak Sen’s gentle, inspiring documentary All That Breathes is now arriving in a month. Set in Delhi, the film follows two brothers who devote their lives to protecting the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to the ecosystem of the city. Ahead of an NYFF premiere and release on October 21, the first trailer has now arrived.
Alistair Ryder said in his review, “The twin issues of climate change and Delhi’s ensuing air pollution remain largely unspoken factors in Sen’s film, which in its best moments constructs elaborate tracking shots detailing the full scale of devastation caused by extreme weather conditions. Images of rats scurrying across a desolate wasteland or wildlife finding a new habitat in puddles caused by flooding (the reflection of a plane clearly visible over them) wind up saying far more than if the film fully, directly grappled with these horrors, largely refraining from interviews with subjects to examine the damaged world they work in.”
See the trailer below.
All That Breathes opens on October 21.