--- name: "Shaunak Sen" canonical: "https://film.one/person/shaunak-sen" fi1m_id: "shaunak-sen" imdb_id: "nm11182342" tmdb_id: 1549669 wikidata_id: "Q112183700" roles: ["Producer","Director"] born: "26 June 1987" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "producer" average_over: 0 updated: "2026-10-03T02:33:46.880768+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Shaunak Sen ## Identity Shaunak Sen - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/shaunak-sen - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** shaunak-sen - **IMDb ID:** nm11182342 - **TMDB ID:** 1549669 - **Wikidata ID:** Q112183700 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaunak_Sen, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q112183700, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11182342/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1549669 Producer and director. Born 26 June 1987 in Kolkata. ## Details - **Work:** Producer, Director - **Born:** 26 June 1987, Kolkata - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaunak_Sen, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q112183700, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11182342/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1549669 ## Streaming the US now - **HBO Max:** [*All That Breathes*](https://film.one/film/all-that-breathes.md) (82) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Shaunak Sen > Shaunak Sen gives injured birds and the people tending them the same patient attention. We find his filmmaking absorbing and humane, though *All That Breathes* sometimes suggests connections that need more explanation than he supplies. In *All That Breathes* (2022), Sen gives injured black kites individual attention rather than treating them as interchangeable evidence of a city’s troubles. The rescue work shares space with family life and observations of Delhi, so caring for an animal becomes part of an ordinary day. Sen, who directed and produced the film, resists making saints of its carers. We were moved by the patient tending of the injured kites, because he lets the work matter without insisting on anyone’s goodness. That interest in how a city lives was already there in his first feature-length documentary, *Cities of Sleep* (2016), about the informal economies surrounding sleep among Delhi’s homeless. His second feature, *All That Breathes*, returns to Delhi through its injured birds and polluted air. Sleep and air give him ways to look closely at the city without pretending that one documentary can explain everything happening there. He is most convincing when he stays close to the practical business of meeting those needs. His camera collaborators include Benjamin Bernhard and Riju Das, and he favours slow pans and tilts over handheld observation. These measured movements give non-human life time on screen without demanding a fresh incident every few seconds. Charlotte Munch Bengtsen’s editing on *All That Breathes* allows the rescue work and family scenes to sit alongside views of the city without spelling out every link between them. Roger Goula Sarda’s music supports the quieter passages without making every injured bird an occasion for sorrow. The measured rhythm mostly holds, though an evening with Sen requires a willingness to sit and look. Our reservation concerns what those images ask us to believe about the birds’ injuries. Pollution is present, but *All That Breathes* does not explain the environmental problems clearly enough to establish every connection it encourages us to make. A little more information would help distinguish what has harmed the animals from the wider difficulties of living in Delhi. We recommend setting aside an unhurried evening for *All That Breathes*. ## Biography Shaunak Sen is an Indian filmmaker and film scholar based in New Delhi. He graduated in mass communication from the A.J.K. Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia and holds a PhD from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Sen's first feature-length documentary, *Cities of Sleep* (2016), screened at international festivals including DOK Leipzig and the Taiwan International Documentary Festival, and won six awards. His second feature, *All That Breathes* (2022), which he also produced, follows two brothers running a bird hospital in Delhi. It won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the Golden Eye at Cannes, and received BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for best documentary. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, allthatbreathes.com, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *All That Breathes* (2022), Fi1m 82, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/all-that-breathes.md) ## Complete filmography (4) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Termite* (2026), Director, Writer - *Shadowbox* (2026), Producer - *All That Breathes* (2022), Producer, Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/all-that-breathes.md) - *Cities of Sleep* (2015), Director, Editor, Script, Director of Photography ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 2023: Best Documentary Feature Film (nominated), for *All That Breathes* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/shaunak-sen