In one of the world's most populated cities, cows, rats, monkeys, frogs, and hogs jostle cheek-by-jowl with people. Here, two brothers fall in love with a bird - the black kite. From their makeshift bird hospital in their tiny basement, the "kite brothers" care for thousands of these mesmeric creatures that drop daily from New Delhi's smog-choked skies. As environmental toxicity and civil unrest escalate, the relationship between this Muslim family and the neglected kite form... (Full plot summary below)
Enjoy FREE movies and series with your Prime (USA) subscription or when you start a 30-day free trial!
In one of the world's most populated cities, cows, rats, monkeys, frogs, and hogs jostle cheek-by-jowl with people. Here, two brothers fall in love with a bird - the black kite. From their makeshift bird hospital in their tiny basement, the "kite brothers" care for thousands of these mesmeric creatures that drop daily from New Delhi's smog-choked skies. As environmental toxicity and civil unrest escalate, the relationship between this Muslim family and the neglected kite forms a poetic chronicle of the city's collapsing ecology and rising social tensions.
Leave your thoughts about All That Breathes.
| San Francisco ChronicleChris VognarAll That Breathes is the kind of immersive documentary experience other filmmakers, and film lovers, would do well to study. It never feels the need to explain what it’s doing. It’s as calm and patient as the Samaritans at its core. |
| Los Angeles TimesRobert AbeleAs deliberate as the image-making often is, it’s always to train us in looking as the brothers do, to consider the breadth of life and interconnectedness in our world: Wherever you are, All That Breathes is asking, can you see what’s there, what needs your attention? |
| RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAll That Breathes blends a verité-style character study with gorgeous nature cinematography while never losing the film’s overall commentary on how man interacts with nature—or merely chooses to destroy it through inaction. |
| The New York TimesA.O. ScottNeither a nature documentary nor a political lecture, All That Breathes is a subtle, haunting reflection on the meaning of humanity — on the breathtaking kindness and heartbreaking cruelty that define our wounded, intrepid, predatory species. |
| Film ThreatMichael Talbot-HaynesAll That Breathes is a powerful documentary with a message that needs to be felt down deep in the lungs. |
| The Hollywood ReporterDan FienbergPortrait of a city? Portrait of a pair of heroic brothers? Portrait of humanity on the brink of COVID? In this tiny marvel of a documentary, it’s a little and a lot all at once. |
| Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenAll That Breathes instills admiration and wonder while also subtly implicating human beings in a responsibility for the upkeep and furtherance of life. |
| Paste MagazineApariti BhandariThe documentary uses the brothers and their relationship with the carrion birds as metaphors for the state of the environmental and political climate of India’s capital, forming a subtle subtext to the main account. |
| SlashfilmCaroline CaoEven if the bird rescuers' efforts are merely a "Band-Aid" against an ever-engulfing miasma, Shaunak Sen provides a worthy arc for the audience to grasp an elegant understanding of the brothers' ecological purpose. |
| The PlaylistNed BoothIf Sen were to better connect Nadeem and Saud’s faith and civic identities with the kites and other animals’ desperate fight for balance in an urbanized nature, All That Breathes would be an excellent documentary. |
