The first post on Shaunak Sen’s movie All That Breathes losing to Daniel Rohr’s Navalny at the 95th Academy Awards was made on Instagram. It received a nomination for Best Documentary Feature Film. The director shared photos from the ceremony more than a day after the Oscars, and in one of them, he displayed the letter “L” on his forehead as a symbol of his failure.
“So many chin-up messages of support/encouragement since yesterday,” Shaunak wrote. After spending approximately an hour down there, we were soon sidetracked by the ratio of shiny people and stuff. The realization that this is the conclusion of this chapter is still difficult for the brain to process.
“Our next major effort will be to investigate distribution in India” (HBO has ended its deal with Hotstar in India, and we are figuring out on which platform it will now come). For now, brothers, and it’s fantastic to have so many other members of our crew to enjoy this strange, bloated day with. Congratulations to all of the winning Indian films!
Shaunak then posted the Oscars night images in “chronological” order. While the first shows Shaunak and the crew getting ready for the evening, the second shows the cast of the movie, including Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer, attending a pre-Oscars party and walking the champagne carpet. Shaunak appeared in one picture with a ‘L’ sign on his forehead and posing in front of an Oscar mannequin. There were also a couple more after-party moments.
The national capital of Everything That Breathes discusses climate change in India. The movies All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Fire of Love, A House Built of Splinters, and Navalny were up for nomination against it. The highly regarded movie had previously taken home the Golden Eye Award for Best Documentary at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
It centers on the tale of two brothers who work in a filthy Delhi basement, Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shahzad. Black kites and other metropolitan birds that are having difficulty breathing the smog-filled air are rescued and treated. Even though it didn’t win an Oscar in 2023, India won the coveted prize in two other categories. The RRR song Naatu Naatu by SS Rajamouli took home the Oscar for best original song. The Best Documentary Short Film honor went to Guneet Monga’s The Elephant Whispers.
