That Also Breathes
O da Nefes Alıyor
The breath we love in one life is the breath we ignore in another.
FILM PROFILE
LOGLINE
A quiet confrontation with the invisible line between the animals we love and the animals we consume.
- Format
- Short Film
- Status
- Completed
- Production Year
- 17/12/2022
- Runtime
- 02:10
- Country of Production
- Türkiye
- Filming Locations
- Türkiye
- Genre
- Experimental / Silent Drama / Conceptual Short
- Original Language
- Silent
- Subtitles
- None / Not Applicable
- Image
- Colour
- Aspect Ratio
- 16:9
- Sound
- Stereo
- Exhibition Formats
- Digital File
- Delivery Formats
- Digital screener / online screener
- Public Status
- Released — publicly available online
- Premiere Status
- Publicly released online. Historical festival premiere status.
- Festival Strategy
- Previous festival distribution handled by IranFilmPort. Further festival submissions are managed selectively based on eligibility for a publicly released film.
- Sales / Distribution
- Festival distribution handled by IranFilmPort. Sales and licensing rights are retained and managed directly by AD1 FILM.
- Available Territories
- Worldwide
- Production Companies
- AD1 FILM
SHORT SYNOPSIS
In a silent, conceptual narrative, That Also Breathes explores the invisible line humans draw between species. Through the quiet routine of a woman and her pet, the film challenges the moral dissonance of loving one animal while consuming another, serving as a powerful, wordless mirror to our daily choices.
SYNOPSIS
In a silent, minimalist narrative, That Also Breathes follows a woman through an ordinary domestic moment that gradually becomes morally unbearable. Her relationship with her beloved companion animal reveals a contradiction hidden in plain sight: the emotional intimacy humans share with some animals, and the distance they create from others whose suffering has been normalized through food, habit, and culture.
Without dialogue or direct explanation, the film allows a single realization to expand into an ethical confrontation. The woman is not attacked, judged, or lectured; instead, she is invited into recognition. The film collapses the boundary between the protected animal and the consumed animal, asking whether compassion can remain selective once the shared desire to live becomes visible.
That Also Breathes is not only a vegan advocacy film. It is a cinematic meditation on speciesism, animal sentience, cognitive dissonance, and the quiet violence hidden inside everyday choices.
THEMES
Speciesism · Animal Sentience · Cognitive Dissonance · Moral Hypocrisy · Peace and Veganism · Compassion and Action · Human Exceptionalism · Ethical Consumption · Companion Animals vs. Farmed Animals · The Politics of Seeing
KEYWORDS
DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHY
Bahman Radan
Bahman Radan is an Iranian director, writer and producer whose conceptual films explore ethics, compassion, animal rights and the relationship between human beings and other living beings.
A committed vegan and advocate for animal rights, Radan often uses silence and concise visual narratives to examine moral contradictions embedded in everyday life.
His filmography includes That Also Breathes, Victim, Return, Circle, Smoking Kills But Not You, Smile and Childhood Dream.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Bahman Radan is an Iranian director, writer and producer whose conceptual films explore ethics, compassion, animal rights and the relationship between human beings and other living beings.
A committed vegan and advocate for animal rights, Radan often uses silence and concise visual narratives to examine moral contradictions embedded in everyday life.
His filmography includes That Also Breathes, Victim, Return, Circle, Smoking Kills But Not You, Smile and Childhood Dream.
PRODUCER BIOGRAPHY
Bahman Radan
Bahman Radan is an Iranian filmmaker working as a director, writer and producer. His production practice is closely connected to the development of his independent films, allowing their central ideas to remain consistent from concept through production and post-production.
His films often use concise structures and visual storytelling to examine ethical and social questions. His producing credits include That Also Breathes, Victim and other independent short-form projects developed through AD1 FILM.
PRODUCER’S STATEMENT
Producing That Also Breathes meant protecting the simplicity of the film’s central idea. The story did not need explanation or dialogue; it needed enough space for a familiar domestic moment to become uncomfortable.
The production was shaped around that restraint. Rather than turning the film into an argument, we wanted the audience to arrive at the contradiction themselves: why one animal is seen as a companion while another can disappear behind the language of food.
For me, the film works through recognition rather than persuasion. Its short duration, silence and minimal structure were all intended to keep that recognition immediate.
Bahman Radan
Producer
WRITER
Sara Moradi
Sara Moradi is an Iranian writer and producer and Head of Creative Development at AD1 FILM. Her background in audience research, content strategy and narrative development informs her screenwriting, which often examines moral pressure, identity, grief and the consequences of private choices. Her writing credits include That Also Breathes, Victim, Return and The Last Frame.
VISUAL APPROACH
That Also Breathes uses a restrained visual language built around domestic intimacy and observation. The camerawork combines static compositions with more mobile shots, allowing the film to shift between quiet observation and moments of greater emotional proximity.
The lighting was deliberately designed rather than relying only on available light. It shapes the domestic environment without making it feel artificial, helping an ordinary situation gradually become more psychologically and morally unsettling.
Rather than explaining its ethical argument through dialogue, the film allows gestures, objects, framing and the relationship between the woman and her companion animal to carry the narrative. The visual approach keeps the audience inside a familiar everyday space until that familiarity begins to feel unstable.
Silence remains central to the film. Music and sound design support the emotional movement without explaining the central realization for the audience.
PRODUCTION NOTES
That Also Breathes was produced by AD1 FILM in Türkiye and completed in December 2022.
The film was conceived as a silent conceptual short from the screenplay stage. With no spoken dialogue, its narrative depends on visual performance, framing, music and sound design.
The production combines static and mobile camerawork with deliberately designed lighting. These choices were used to preserve the intimacy of the domestic setting while gradually shifting its emotional meaning as the central contradiction becomes visible.
Its 2-minute-and-10-second structure was developed around a single moment of recognition rather than a conventional dialogue-driven dramatic progression. The minimal form keeps attention on the relationship between the woman and her companion animal and on the moral conflict that emerges from it.
Because the film contains no spoken dialogue, it can be presented internationally without translation subtitles.
PRODUCTION COMPANY PROFILE
AD1 FILM
AD1 FILM is an independent film company based in Türkiye, working across film production, project development, festival strategy, publicity and international sales preparation. The company develops and produces independent and auteur-driven projects and manages the international positioning, sales and licensing of its titles where rights are retained.
CAST & CREW
Direction — Director Bahman Radan
Writing — Writer Sara Moradi
Editor Zahra Radanfar
Principal Cast — Lead Cast Mobina Alinasab
- Direction — Director
- Bahman Radan
- Writing — Writer
- Sara Moradi
- Production — Producer
- Bahman Radan
- Cinematography — Cinematographer
- Ben Richmond
- Camera
- Bahman Radan
- Editor
- Zahra Radanfar
- Principal Cast — Lead Cast
- Mobina Alinasab
- Composer / Sound Designer
- Sina Masserrat
- Colour / Light Correction
- Zahra Radanfar
- Script Supervisor
- Zahra Radanfar
- Poster Designer
- Mohammad Reza Jafari
FILM STILLS
BEHIND THE SCENES
FESTIVAL SELECTIONS, AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
INDUSTRY PROFILES
BUYER & PRESS MATERIALS