Exclusive! Shaunak Sen on his Oscar nomination: Utterly happy and relieved and discombobulated

The 95th Academy Awards is all set to take place on March 13. On January 24, the nominations in different categories were announced. Along with RRR song ‘Naatu Naatu’ and short documentary, The Elephant Whisperers, Shaunak’s documentary All That Breathes secures its place in the Oscar nominations this year. He has also bagged a BAFTA nomination. Last year, Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas’ documentary Writing with Fire was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.   

Shaunak is evidently excited about the nomination. In an exclusive chat with OTTplay, he said, “It’s feeling extraordinarily difficult to say something that doesn't sound like a cliche. We’re besides ourselves with joy and a bit lost for words at this moment. Utterly utterly happy and somewhat discombobulated. I want to offer my deepest, most heartfelt thanks to our incredible characters and the whole film team and I am grateful to the Academy for recognising their work.”

Shaunak’s All that Breathes won the L’Oeil d’Or (Golden Eye) award for best documentary at the 75th Cannes Film Festival this year. The documentary has been bought by HBO and will be available for the global audience to watch by the end of this year. Earlier, he said that he is keen to work on fiction – especially adaptation of literary work. “I am not at liberty to talk about anything now. But I am keen to work on fiction," he told us.