Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” has won the Cannes Film Festival’s top documentary award, the Golden Eye.
The film won the documentary grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and was acquired by HBO Documentary Films during Cannes, where it played as a special screening.
Set in Indian capital Delhi, where, in an unbreathable atmosphere, the threat of inter-religious massacres floats in the air, the film follows two brothers, Nadeem and Saud, who along with their assistant, dedicate their lives to save the migratory black kites that are destroyed by human madness.
The Golden Eye jury, composed of Agnieszka Holland, Iryna Tsilyk, Pierre Deladonchamps, Alex Vicente and Hicham Falah, said: “The Golden Eye goes to a film that, in a world of destruction, reminds us that every life matters, and every small action matters. You can grab your camera, you can save a bird, you can hunt for some moments of stealing beauty, it matters. It’s an inspirational journey in observation of three Don Quixotes who may not save the whole world but do save their world.”
The jury’s Special Award went to late Lithuanian filmmaker Mantas Kvedaravicius’ “Mariupolis 2,” a follow up to his 2016 film “Mariupolis.” An examination of a society living under the threat of war, “Mariupolis 2” was completed by Kvedaravicius’ Ukrainian partner Hanna Bilobrova after he was killed by the Russian army.
The jury said: “Our special prize goes to the film impossible to compare with any other from the competition. To the very radical, courageous, artistic and existential statement “Mariupolis 2.” The director Matras Kvedaravicius is among the thousands of civilians killed by the Russian army since the start of the full-scale Putin invasion.”