All That Breathes             4 ½ suns

For my final documentary film I saw the winner of the World Cinema Documentary Grand Jury Prize, All That Breathes. This story comes from New Delhi, India where two Muslim brothers, Saud and Nadeem have made it their life’s work to rescue and care for injured black kites. There is a Muslim belief that feeding meat to these predatory birds will help ward off troubles. They often cover the sky and are drawn to the city where they feed on the waste of the human population. But the pollution of the air caused by heavy industry takes its toll on the birds and they often fall from the sky where the brothers and their enlisted crew rescue them, bringing them to Saud’s basement where they can be nursed back to health. The film poetically connects the birds to the entire ecosystem, giving their efforts a higher purpose. We see their efforts to keep the enterprise going including their applying for grant money and Saud’s plan to get more animal rescue training in the United States. All this is going on at a time when anti-Muslim violence plagues the city amid increased religious conflict that the government does little to stop. The film is a lesson about how living things find ways to adapt to their changing environment.