All That Breathes

The black kites of New Delhi, poisoned by the city’s smog and often injured by India’s popular nationalistic pastime of flying paper kites, are falling from the sky in vast numbers. Small raptors more like pigeons in their congregating scavenger habits, these mesmeric creatures have few options left, threatened by the crowded city’s escalating environmental crisis. From their tiny, makeshift bird hospital in their basement, two brothers care for thousands of the kites every year. Their hopeful, persistent and often spiritual efforts to rehabilitate the birds and return them to the skies defy the city’s collapsing ecology and rising social tensions. A NYT Critic’s Pick, the film won the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema at Sundance and Golden Eye for best documentary at this year’s Cannes Festival. It first screened at FilmColumbia 2022.

Nominated for an Oscar for Best Documentary