As Shane Boris got up from his seat to receive the Oscar award for Navalny, a film produced by him, among those cheering loudly from nearby was a fellow nominee, named Shaunak Sen. Chasing the award in the same category, Boris and Sen also shared the same alma mater — Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi.
Sen, a former student of the School of Arts and Aesthetics at JNU, and Boris, a former Masters programme student at its School of International Relations, were vying for Best Documentary Feature, which was won by Navalny, the story of the assassination attempt on Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Sen's debut film, All That Breathes, about two brothers caring for the black kite predator birds that roam the polluted sky over Delhi, was one of five shortlisted movies for Academy Award in Best Documentary Feature category last year.
Boris, an American national, was a student at JNU during 2005-07, nearly a decade before the Delhi-based Sen joined the central university. As the friendly rivalry between the two former JNU students played out at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles last year, it was the first Oscar win linked to JNU and first-time nomination for an Indian student from the university.
Another Indian, Ooty-based Kartiki Gonsalves, would go on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Short, for her debut film, The Elephant Whisperers, in the same year.
As another year beckons for the Oscar awards — the 2024 shortlist will be announced on January 23 — the contest between two JNU alumni last year reflects the power of the documentary genre and the platform that the famous campus provided for going beyond the borders.
Boris, who lives outside Los Angeles, was bitten by the movie bug when he was on a flight to Delhi from the United States to join the Master of Arts in International Relations course at JNU in 2005.
"It happened on the flight to Delhi," says Boris. "My flight was cancelled and when it was ready the airline upgraded me to business. Sitting next to me was a film producer from Hollywood."
It turned out that the Hollywood producer was going to India for the making of Before the Rains, directed by Malayalam filmmaker Santosh Sivan. "The producer showed me the script of the movie and asked me to meet him in Chennai," he says.
"I went to JNU and joined the university. After that I flew to Chennai and became part of the production team for Before the Rains. We shot in Munnar, Kerala," says Boris. "I learnt cinema there."
After the shooting, Boris returned to JNU to continue his studies. "After JNU I moved back to the United States and produced several films. My first production was Before the Rains in 2005," he quips.
In 2014, Boris founded his production house, Cottage M, one of the producers of Navalny. Produced by HBO Max in partnership with Cottage M, RaeFilm Studios and Fishbowl Films, Navalny handed Boris an Oscar award in 2023, nearly two decades after his first brush with film production as a JNU student. Sen's All That Breathes was also an HBO Documentary film.
Months after the 2023 Academy Awards, Boris and Sen were involved in a documentary scenario again, this time Boris as a producer and Sen as an outside supporter for a new movie. Hollywoodgate, a documentary by Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash'at, received support from Sen during post-production.
It was Boris who suggested to Nash'at, a first-time filmmaker, that he talk to Sen about the film that explored the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of American forces in 2021. The Berlin-based Egyptian took the advice and showed the rough cut of Hollywoodgate to Sen after Boris did the introductions.
"Shaunak helped me a lot," says Nash'at. "We had a long talk about the movie after he watched the rough cut. I was feeling the movie was missing a bit of pace. Shaunak felt it too. He helped me unlock things. I was afraid of breaking the things that were not working. But Shaunak said things can be much better than that. I made major decisions after that. I wasn't afraid to stand up and say hey, these are the things that could become better," adds Nash'at, who won the Best Documentary Award at last month's El Gouna Film Festival in Egypt.
Nash'at and Sen, who were talking on the internet, later met in Zurich at the end of last year. "You were too afraid to make changes," Sen told him. "I was surprised you actually made changes."
"Shaunak is brilliant. I think it was very helpful," Boris says about the Indian director helping an Egyptian filmmaker's first movie, produced by him along with fellow Navalny producer Odessa Rae and Syrian filmmaker Talal Derki. "I can't wait for the film to play in India," he adds. "I always wait for another friend to get married to go to India."
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