All That Breathes director Shaunak Sen says he had 'sleepless nights' prior to film being nominated for Oscars 2023

Shaunak Sen’s documentary film All That Breathes has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 95^th Academy Awards. The director has already won accolades for the documentary film like the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival 2022 and The Golden Eye award at the Cannes Film Festival 2022 in the category of the best documentary and now the direct eyes a win at the Oscars.

In an interview with News 18, Shaunak Sen revealed his first reaction when he saw the nominations list and said, “I suppose sinking in is a long-winded process and given that the dates are announced this much in advance one is constantly playing the alternate timelines in one’s head, so it has sunk in but also there is a long way to go, there is still some time to go and many hoops to jump through.”

Shaunak Sen continued to say, “My initial reaction was - relief! It came at around 2 am our time and it was an entirely and utterly sleepless night but apart from that one is utterly beside oneself is taken over by joy and thrill because the film took a large part of all our lives. I think initially it is just the phone calls to all the crew members and it is very jubilant. I always get a bit suspicious of happiness so for me it is often the calculus of what is to be done now for the next steps.”

Other than Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, SS Rajamouli’s RRR song Naatu Naatu has also been nominated in the category of Best Original Song and it will also be performed live by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava at the 95^th Academy Awards. Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whispers is nominated in the category of Best Documentary Short Film.