Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. When you think of urban wildlife, what kinds of animals come to mind? Here in New York, you'd probably picture pigeons, sparrows, squirrels, rats, maybe an abandoned pet alligator if you're at the lake in Prospect Park this week, but All That Breathes, the Oscar-nominated documentary we'll talk about now offers a broader picture of urban life forms, as it showcases the diversity of species that call New Delhi home. Sure, they have their fair share of rats and pigeons, too, but there's also pigs and frogs, horses, monkeys and countless other beings that have grown accustomed to living in a man-made jungle.

This is part two of our week-long series with makers of the five documentaries nominated for the Oscar for Best Feature Documentary, which means full-length documentary. They have a separate category for documentary shorts. We started yesterday, as some of you heard, with the director of the film Navalny about the Russian dissident now in prison, Alexei Navalny. Today, it's the film All That Breathes. All That Breathes explores the relationship between brothers, the birds of prey they rescue, and the social conflict plaguing New Delhi and intersect with these other species.

Through witnessing these interspecies relationships, we come to understand how inconnected we all are. With us now is the film's director Shaunak Sen. Congratulations on your Oscar nomination. Welcome to WNYC.

Shaunak Sen: Thank you so much. Really happy to be here.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us first how you came across Nadeem Shehzad and Mohammad Saud and why you decided to film them.

Shaunak Sen: The thing is, when you live in the city of Delhi, you're often preoccupied with the air. The air constantly is this gray, oppressive, tactile, visceral sort of a space that your life is constantly laminated by. I was interested in doing something on this almost creepily sentient air that we get in Delhi, especially in the winters. Alongside that, I was interested in doing something around the philosophical relationship between humans and non-humans.

That's when I discovered the singular and brilliant work of the brothers Nadeem and Saud, who, for the last 15 years, have, in this tiny, grubby basement, saved over 25,000 black kites, these big raptors called black kites. They do singular, remarkable work. Alongside that, I also found them to be almost like philosophers when it comes to urban ecologies. I got interested in it as a kind of-- the idea was to try and put together a ecological, political and an emotional account of the city through the relationship of this one Muslim family, these two brothers and this bird called the black kite.

Brian Lehrer: I guess that explains the title All That Breathes, all the species that breathe the air that people are obsessed with in New Delhi, yes?

Shaunak Sen: Indeed. In fact, it's actually a quote from a direct line that they often recount that their mother would teach them, when she would tell them to not hierarchize between all things that live, all things that breathe. In a way, this idea that life itself is a kind of membership, that all of us are a community of air and one shouldn't draw distinctions between things. It was a radical and a profound idea, and it would feel woo-hoo and sentimental had one not seen the way they lead their own lives.

Therefore, the film becomes a kind of exploration of their relationship with non-human life. It's all the more pertinent for cities because of how the urban space drives behavioral changes and evolutionary changes, really. In a way, the title basically nudges at their broader worldview and how they think about human-non-human entanglement and a kind of kinship or neighborliness with non-human life.

Brian Lehrer: In the film, Nadeem describes New Delhi as a stomach and the massive birds of prey referred to as kites as the microbiome of a gut. Can you help us understand the ecosystem of New Delhi through that lens and how kites play a role in it?

Shaunak Sen: For sure. I don't imagine that sentence would not be valid for most big cities in the world. What he specifically is talking about is that most landfills in most cities, New York or LA or London or Paris included, usually have hundreds of thousands of raptors around them that actually literally eat away the garbage of the city, especially so in Delhi. In a way, it's funny because all the waste we produce, a large part of the waste that we produce literally flies skywards. It literally goes into the sky because these birds eat them.

In that particular comment, they're talking about how they're also, in a way, they're the ultimate garbage collectors of the city. The truth is that all cities have a kind of metabolism, where our waste goes, what we eat, what we eat eats and where our refuse goes. Just in keeping the ecological balance of a city, many animals are extremely, extremely important.

Some animals have very successful urban careers, while others don't. I think the brothers, that particular line at that point nudges towards how important certain animals are in just keeping the flow of the city going, something that is almost entirely unknown or invisible to most of us.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, who has seen All That Breathes and wants to ask the film's director Shaunak Sen a question? (212)-433-WNYC. If you haven't seen the film, how do you think of yourself and the other species that exist in New York City or wherever you are as breathing the same air? Have you ever had a surprising relationship with an urban animal or an urban bird that you want to relay? You could tell us a story along those lines of personally coexisting with the wildlife near you.

(212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692, or tweet @brianlehrer for Shaunak Sen, this now Oscar-nominated documentary producer. (212)-433-9692.

Shaunak, I want to play the listeners a clip from the film. Folks, I'll tell you that this is in Hindi, but I'll read the translation afterwards. You get the sound, though, of one of the brothers reminiscing on feeding kites as a child during a monologue set to kites flying and squawking.

Male Speaker 3: [Hindi language]

Brian Lehrer: Well, it'd make a great radio documentary too, just from the beauty of that sound. What he was saying there, if I've got the translation right because I don't speak Hindi, but I have it as, he's saying, "It's said that feeding kites earns sawab, religious credit. When they eat the meat you offer, they eat away your difficulties, and their hunger is insatiable. Our elders used to take us for meat-tossing. We'd lie on the ground, watching the elegant curves in the sky. The head would spin. Have you ever felt vertigo looking into the sky?"

That's beautiful, Shaunak. These monologues set the footage of animals are just so poetic. Why did you decide to tell so much of the story in that format?

Shaunak Sen: Thank you. When we started, I think there were three things that I wanted to avoid doing. I did not want to make a straightforward wildlife or a nature doc. I don't have the experience nor the ambition. I did not want to make just a sweet film about nice people doing good things. There is also a version of that in this. I wanted to make something that was poetic, cinematic, lyrical, beautiful and really communicated the philosophical richness of the brothers.

I wanted to make something that reflected some of the profound ways in which they lead their lives. Therefore, we had to find a form aesthetically that was unlike regular, traditional observation documentaries, which are a kind of run-and-gun, rough sort of a style. Therefore, we had to find an aesthetic style that was cinematic and lyrical, so that the film would seem contemplative and meditative and would make you reflect on some of the ideas that the brothers were talking about.

Essentially, when I was shooting the film, I felt like the sky was enchanted for me and birds were suddenly enchanted for me anew again. Birds are usually like tiny tremors at the edges of our vision. Suddenly, instead of focusing just on human-oriented things, I was inclined to concentrate. It's like my own vision had broadened. In a way, the film had to, at least, try to do that kind of a thing where you're able to enchant non-human life again for people who are watching. Which is why we decided to opt for a form that is unlike most regular documentaries.

Brian Lehrer: Birds as a tremor at the edges of our eyesight. That's got to be the line of the week on the show, at least so far. Maryanne in the East Village, you're on WNYC with Shaunak Sen. Hi Maryanne.

Maryanne: Hi. How are you?

Shaunak Sen: Hello.

Maryanne: I want to say congratulations, you accomplished all your goals with the film. Hello?

Shaunak Sen: Thank you. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you saw it, obviously?

Maryanne: Yes, I saw it. Actually, you were at the screening and you were great. I remember the one thing you said, "What do you want people to take away from the film?" You said, "Just look up." It was a simple thing to say, but it was profound, is, "Yes, look up, look at the sky, look at the creatures that are flying around. Look at the universe." Every day when I go out, that's the first thing I do. I look up and I look at all the birds and just feel part of everything.

Shaunak Sen: Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: [crosstalk] Go ahead.

Shaunak Sen: That just genuinely warms my heart. I remember the first thing that I said to the assistant directors in the film on the first-ever meeting that we had on the film three and a half years ago, I said, "I hope audiences leave the theaters and look up." We had on a poster written the words, enchant this guy, and put it up on the wall. This sort of a comment really, really gladdens me, gladdens my heart. Thank you so much.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, you've definitely affected her daily routine. How about that? Sean in LA you're on WNYC. Hi Sean.

Sean: Hi Brian. Hi Shaunak. Beautiful film. I'm a filmmaker and I enjoyed the screening out here in LA about a month ago, I guess. One of the comments you said in the Q&A, I think it's so gorgeously done that it's not a typical, it feels like a narrative film to me personally and the opening, I won't spoil it, everybody go see it. It is just one of the most gorgeous openings of a film I've seen in a long time.

One thing that really struck me was, I think you made a comment that the first six months of footage you shot, basically none of it was usable and was just a bit curious to hear about your comments about, "Hey, sticking to your vision during the process of a long production like this."

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Sean. Shaunak, go ahead.

Shaunak Sen: Right. Thank you for bringing up that comment. Essentially when we began, I actually started shooting as if this was a regular documentary. The camera was handheld and it's only after six months I realized that the material that I was shooting was far more edgy and restless and anxious than the topic required because the brothers themselves are so meditative. Therefore the material also had to be contemplative.

First I put it on a tripod and then I realized that I was leaning into styles that were more from a fiction toolkit, things like cranes and tracks and dollies and so on, because I needed that kind of a style. Essentially, it meant that the first six months of shooting, those two full hard drives of footage had to completely let go of because there's no way I could marry that style with this one.

In hindsight, it feels like a heroic and a sacrificial and a brave thing to do, but actually, a film is like a fever dream. You've jumped off a cliff and you're in free fall and once you've taken a turn, there's nothing you can do. The inevitable thrust of it is really undeniable and unimpeachable. I had no choice, but then move on to a new style, which is why we realized over time that it's like the outer covering of the film, the aesthetic shell of the film has to be like fiction. Because it has to draw people in with its beauty and aesthetic confidence.

Even though we are not telling characters what to do or what to say, of course, you can't, but thankfully the place that we were shooting in was small and the same actions would often get repeated every day, so we could anticipate and choreograph camera movements and arrive at the style which felt like-- the heart of the film is documentary and unscripted, whereas this style or the grammar of the film is actually closer to fiction films.

Brian Lehrer: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you mentioned briefly before that one of the things you wanted to do was film these two Muslim brothers in addition to all of the other species who were in this interspecies documentary. It didn't seem like the film made a big deal out of Nadeem Shehzad being Muslim. There are definitely spiritual moments and mentions of religion, but one could possibly miss the fact that the brothers are Muslim in a time where it's particularly unsafe to be Muslim in New Delhi.

You mentioned it here early on, that two Muslim brothers, to what degree was centering two do gooding interesting philosophical, smart Muslim brothers in New Delhi, a goal of yours?

Shaunak Sen: When we began the film, its interests were primarily ecological. However, as the months went by, the city of Delhi was increasingly going through a very tumultuous and turbulent time. In a way, what we realized is that the outside world would leak in. Even in the film you'll realize that there are oblique and tangential references to an unrest on the streets outside. Like a character goes to the balcony and you can hear the murmurs of a protesting crowd.

One of the characters, Salik the youngest brother, essentially, there's a scene where he's looking at the video of violence while the city is under tremendous unrest. That bit where a chipmunk comes out of his pocket suddenly.

Essentially, if you're looking, even if you're not looking close enough, I think it's clear that the brothers are soldiering on, despite the fact that the city is often on the boil. The wallpaper of their lives feels like it's sensitive and there's things that are slightly ominous and it's an ascending order of slight unrest and discomfort.

The city was on the boil and was going through a difficult time. The point was to show that the brothers were soldiering on with their work on the black kites, despite everything that was happening. In a way, and of course, there's also the conversations about what their take on the protests outside are and so on, and their often uneasy relationship out there getting pulled in two directions.

In a way, the film definitely melds or puts together, ties together, the ecological, the sociopolitical and the emotional together. Life is not easily delineated in separate categories and such as the case in their lives also. I think the sociopolitical is a soft underglow in the film, but of course, it's very and it's not front and center at all, but it's there as a minor tone.

Brian Lehrer: We're in our series, if you're just joining us, folks, of interviews with all five directors of the Oscar nominated documentaries. The Oscars are on Sunday, March 12th and this week in this time slot just after the 11 o'clock news, we're talking to the documentary makers of these five feature length documentaries that have been nominated for the Oscars yesterday with the director of Navalny about that Russian dissident. Today with Shaunak Sen, director of All That Breathes about the race to save a species of a bird known as the black kite that's essential to New Delhi's ecosystem.

We've been taking your calls about your interactions with urban wildlife and we'll take one more. Nancy in Mars County, you're on WNYC. Hi Nancy.

Nancy: Hi. Hi everybody. Mr. Sen, it sounds like a beautiful movie that you made. I do want to see it, it reminds me of a [unintelligible 00:19:59] a beautiful philosophy of reverence for all life, which is a great compass to use through our life. I did want to say we have a bird's nest the past, I guess, five years in our house that happens to be right behind our heads in our bed. They're exactly behind us, so if there's a storm at night, there's torrential rain, I can sense them, I can hear them. I think of them and I think that we're sleeping together, in a sense.

Brian Lehrer: They're right out your window?

Nancy: Exactly behind our head, just underneath the window, like an inch. They're right there and we have the crank out windows. When the babies are learning to fly, we crank the windows open, they sit on the edge there as they're ready to take their first flight. I can be just inches away and I see the parents and they're looking at me sideways and almost like they know me. They've been coming back for years now and I feel so connected and I love them and root for them and feel like we're all together in this, whatever situation.

Brian Lehrer: Birds is part of your family without them being in a cage. Nancy, thank you so much for that story.

Nancy: Exactly

Brian Lehrer: Shaunak to finish up, I'll tell the listeners who don't know your work that you've won numerous awards at film festivals across the world and you've been nominated for many others as well. Now you're up for an Oscar.

When I think about the category and these five documentaries that we're featuring this week, yours could hardly be more different from the one we talked about yesterday about the anti Putin dissident and opposition leader Alexei Navalny and here your film is about birds of prey and other species and human beings and the air and the sounds of new Delhi and all of that. Has an Oscar judge ever to decide, maybe they need their own categories?

Shaunak Sen: You've struck at the heart of the conundrum really, that films can't be in competition. Of course, inherently I think all of us-- Daniel who you spoke to yesterday is a close friend of mine. As of the other people who are nominated and all of us have had entirely different journeys. They're entirely an utterly different kinds of films. There's no comparison between a film about French volcanologist, a film about birds and these two remarkable brothers in Delhi, between a Russian dissident, between a children's home in Ukraine and Nan Golding.

Of course, it's impossible to judge, but unfortunately, that is the nature of the beast really. It's not the Olympics where it's possible at same parameter to judge, but that is how it is. Of course, all of it feels a bit discombobulating, but at the same time, one is also incredibly relieved that the Oscar platform allows the film to reach to an audience that I couldn't have even dreamt of, honestly.

Brian Lehrer: Even just the nomination.

Shaunak Sen: Exactly. It's a lot of extremely heavy monumental feelings and overall, of course, it's a incredible honor to be nominated, but to the point that you made about how one judges, it's impossible. These are objects of art and you can't really judge it, but one has to be grateful and very thankful for the fact that hopefully more and more people will see the film on HBO. HBO Max now and it's just like one is thankful for the fact that one has a wider constituency.

Brian Lehrer: As I said to Daniel yesterday, good luck at the Oscars on March 12th. Shaunak Sen, Director of All That Breathes. Thanks for joining us. We really appreciate.

Shaunak Sen: Thanks so much.

Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.