All That Breathes bested the competition at this year’s Cinema Eye Honors. The film directed by Shaunak Sen won three Cinema Eye Honours including the top prize for Outstanding Nonfiction Feature. It also scored Best Cinematography for DP Ben Bernhard. All That Breathes has confidently become an industry favourite this season. It topped the International Documentary Association’s IDA Awards in December following a breakout festival run that included top honours at Sundance and Cannes. The film has touched audiences for its portrait of two brothers who run a bird clinic in New Delhi and see in their care for carnivorous birds a larger parable of social equality.
The winners for the Cinema Eye Honors, moreover, reflected what a strong year 2022 was for documentary. The awards spread the wealth with most of the top nominees being recognized. Oscar frontrunner Laura Poitras scored directing honours for All the Beauty and the Bloodshed. Subject and producer Nan Goldin was also cited on Cinema Eye Honors’ list of “The Unforgettables.” The list highlighting memorable characters included Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad of All That Breathes, as well as Russian politician and Putin critic Alexei Navalny. The doc portrait about the political prisoner won the Cinema Eye Honors award for Outstanding Production and the doc, directed by Toronto’s Daniel Roher, won the Audience Award. Multiple wins also went to Sara Dosa’s Fire of Love, which scored four awards: Outstanding Music, Editing, Visual Design, and a citation for late volcanologists Maurice and Katia Krafft among the Unforgettables. Brett Morgen’s Moonage Daydream, meanwhile, tied Fire of Love for Outstanding Visual Design and won Outstanding Sound. Finally, the Nuisance Bear team of Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden scored a major win in the short documentary category for their artfully shot eco doc as Oscar voters head to the polls.
The Cinema Eye Honors also included a tribute to late filmmaker Julia Reichert, who passed away last year following a long battle with cancer. Reichert is best known for her commitment to social activist documentary and labour stories, most notably her 2019 feature American Factory, directed with her partner Stevan Bognar, which won the Academy Award.
The full list of Cinema Eye Honors winners is as follows
Outstanding Nonfiction Feature
All That Breathes
Directed and Produced by Shaunak Sen
Produced by Aman Mann and Teddy Leifer
Outstanding Direction
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Laura Poitras
Outstanding Editing
Fire of Love
Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput
Outstanding Production
Navalny
Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller and Shane Boris
Outstanding Cinematography
All That Breathes
Ben Bernhard
Outstanding Original Score
Fire of Love
Nicolas Godin
Outstanding Sound Design
Moonage Daydream
Samir Foco, John Warhurst and Nina Hartstone, Sound Designers
Outstanding Visual Design
Fire of Love
Lucy Munger, Animation; Kara Blake, Graphic Artist; and Rui Ting Ji, Hand-drawn animation & Illustrations
Moonage Daydream
Stefan Nadelman, Animation
Outstanding Debut
The Territory
Directed by Alex Pritz
Outstanding Nonfiction Short
Nuisance Bear
Directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden
Audience Choice Prize
Navalny
Directed by Daniel Roher
Spotlight
Master of Light
Directed by Rosa Ruth Boesten
Heterodox
Aftersun
Directed by Charlotte Wells
The Unforgettables (Non-Competitive Honor)
All That Breathes
Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Nan Goldin
Bad Axe
Chun Siev
Beba
Rebeca Huntt
Fire of Love
Katia and Maurice Krafft
Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down
Gabby Giffords
I Didn’t See You There
Reid Davenport
In Her Hands
Zarifa Ghafari
Last Flight Home
Eli Timoner
Mija
Doris Muñoz
My Old School
Brandon Lee
Navalny
Alexei Navalny
Nothing Compares
Sinead O’Connor
Sr.
Robert Downey Sr.
The Territory
Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau and Neidinha Bandeira
Broadcast Film
Chernobyl: The Lost Tapes
Directed by James Jones | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
Nonfiction Series
Black and Missing
Directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Samantha Knowles | HBO Documentary Films/HBO Max
Anthology Series
How To with John Wilson (Season Two)
Nathan Fielder, Michael Koman, Clark Reinking and John Wilson, Executive Producers | HBO
Broadcast Editing
We Need to Talk About Cosby
Meg Ramsay | Showtime
Broadcast Cinematography
Playing With Sharks
Michael Taylor, Judd Overton, Nathan Barlow and Toby Ralph | Disney+
Legacy Award
Crumb
Directed by Terry Zwigoff
Produced by Lynn O’Donnell and Terry Zwigoff
Edited by Victor Livingston
Cinematography by Maryse Alberti
Music by David Beddinghaus
Sound by Scott Breindell
