All That Breathes, which was nominated in the Best Documentary Feature Film category at the 95th edition of the Academy Awards, lost to Daniel Roher’s Navalny. The documentary on India’s climate change was nominated against All the Beauty and the Bloodshed Fire Of Love, A House Made of Splinters, and Navalny. (Also Read | Oscars 2023 live updates)
Navalny is a documentary film that revolves around Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and events related to his poisoning. The award was presented to the team of American production by actor Riz Ahmed and musician Questlove.
All That Breathes revolves around the lives of siblings Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who work out of their derelict basement in Delhi’s Wazirabad, to rescue and treat injured birds, especially the black kites. It has been directed by Shaunak Sen.
All That Breathes, a critically-acclaimed film, previously won the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and the Golden Eye award for the best documentary at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
This is the second upset for India in the category as last year Writing With Fire lost out to Questlove’s Summer of Soul (Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). Writing With Fire was the first Indian feature documentary to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Director Daniel Roher’s portrait of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has shadowy operatives, truth-seeking journalists, conspiracy theories, and Soviet-era poisons. It is a film with obvious political poignance following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Navalny is a media-savvy, anti-corruption campaigner in his mid-40s who has for many years been a headache for Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s released numerous reports about corruption in Russia and the Putin administration and become a popular and rallying figure among like-minded Russians.
Daniel Roher was able to sit down with Navalny during his brief stay in Berlin in 2020 and early 2021 as he was recovering from being poisoned and seeking the truth behind the unsuccessful murder attempt.