The Elephant Whisperers

Lagatar24 Desk. New Delhi, March 17: It was truly a memorable day for India as it celebrated its two big wins at the Oscars. Indian documentary film 'The ...

For the respect of indigenous communities. Guneet Monga’s ‘The Elephant Whisperers’, a documentary directed by Kartiki Gonsalves paved the way for many to believe that India truly can take the centre stage globally. New Delhi, March 17: It was truly a memorable day for India as it celebrated its two big wins at the Oscars.

Gonsalves's The Elephant Whisperers uses a tender family dynamic to explore climate change, shrinking animal habitats and our warped perception of the wild.

Both films focus on the kindness of humans trying to give animals (in Sen’s film, black kites from the skies of Delhi) a new lease of life. It’s a question that the humans in The Elephant Whisperers embody. “I think this is our opportunity, as humans, to think of animals as something more than the ‘other’. In 2017, while driving back from Bengaluru to her hometown Ooty, a hill station in the Western Ghats of southern India, Gonsalves saw a caregiver giving a young calf called Raghu a bath. The elephant is considered both a religious figure in Indian folklore and a marauding wild animal. Raghu is at the heart of this documentary directed by Kartiki Gonsalves that uses a tender family dynamic in the middle of an Indian forest reserve to comment on climate change, shrinking animal habitats and our warped perception of the wild.

Elephant Whisperers” is based on the bond Mahout Bomman and his wife Bellie developed for the injured baby elephant Raghu they looked after | Latest News ...

We cared for them like our children and we have to let them go if they are sent to someone else.” We went in search of them yesterday [Sunday] and it looks like they have gone into the forest looking for their mothers,” said Bomman. It shows the couple first taking care of Raghu and later three-month-old elephant Ammu. “We have to do something for Raghu and Ammu once I get back...I miss them, but what can I do? The documentary shows the couple’s care for Raghu after it gets separated from its herd in Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai. So that means a lot to us.”

Chennai: The Oscar-winning short documentary 'The Elephant Whisperers' was shot in the Theppakadu Elephant Camp at the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in the ...

The Theppakadu Elephant Camp rehabilitates rogue elephants that enter human habitations and enter into conflict with people. Mahouts Kirumaran and Wasim have trained two rogue elephants Moorthy and Easwaran into good formidable animals that have become much gentler. The Theppakadu Elephant Camp in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve is the oldest elephant camp in Asia and was established 105 years back.

Her efforts of raising two orphaned baby elephants, captured in the documentary 'The Elephant Whisperers' is now a global sensation after having won the ...

"The Documentary(Elephant whisperers) has gone as far as the Oscar awards...Only now I knew and understood that it has reached that far... The Elephant Whisperers marks the directorial debut of Kartiki Gonsalves, an Indian documentary filmmaker and photographer. Everyone helped me and provided me with all I needed and hence it was possible to raise both the baby elephants..." It is where Bomman and Bellie stay. "My story(Elephant Whisperers documentary) having won the Oscar award has brought cheer to everyone in Mudumalai Tiger Reserve... Her efforts of raising two orphaned baby elephants, captured in the documentary 'The Elephant Whisperers' is now a global sensation after having won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film. No one has done something of this sort for recognizing the efforts of our people in Mudumalai...We've been living in the Mudumalai forest and have no exposure to the outside world... Its not just me that deserves appreciation for raising the baby elephants... The Forest department officials, adivasi (indigenous tribal)) community, everyone are delighted... The Theppakadu region of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Me having raised those two elephant calves is what has taken us so far..." Even as the story of 'The Elephant Whisperers', which bagged the Oscar-winning Best Documentary Short Film, is weaved around their own life and gets much fanfare at the big awards in Las Angeles and all around the globe, it is heartbreaking to see that the protagonists themselves will not be able to watch and enjoy the grand documentary at their village home.

Mumbai: India created history at the just concluded 95th edition of the Academy Awards as 'The Elephant Whisperers' clinched the Oscar for the Best ...

Today I can say, the future for Indian cinema is audacious, the future is here and not to forget the future is truly female.” My heart is racing with all the joy, love, excitement in the moment. The film’s producer Guneet Monga has reacted to her film’s big win.

More than the pleasure of the Oscar award, Bellie's heart is filled with the pain of separation of the elephant calves she took care of.

It is incredibly distressing for me and the elephants to be close after the period of separation.” But Bellie has her logical reply: “After stopping me from taking care of the two, they are asking me to cuddle with the elephants. While she is happy, that on one hand, the two elephants she raised are the source of so much international attention, she adds, tearfully: “How can I be fully happy when my elephants are no longer with me?” “Every time he fell sick, I would do pujas for his well-being at the temple,” she says. She had a tearful union with the two calves in the film — Raghu and Bommie — after the announcement of the award. A moment of glory for the Kattunayakar tribe of the Western Ghats and their traditional wisdom.

Her directorial debut won an Oscar in the Best Documentary Short Film category. Not to mention, she was also one of the first women to be selected in India ...

And while Gonsalves is in the pursuit to make an impact on environmental and cultural issues through her work, she is also focussing her attention on bringing solutions to the existing challenges with her projects. Having grown up in the Nilgiris, Kartiki Gonsalves describes herself as a traveller and explorer. Much of it also came from her experience as a social documentary photojournalist and filmmaker.

However, expecting it to help generate solutions to the complex problems concerning wild as well as captive elephants in India is a tall order.

Whether it will have an impact on the wider problems of elephant conservation is beyond the ambit of what a documentary can do,” Thekaekara emphasised. “In the last few years, captive elephants have earned a very bad rap. Then there is the problems of elephants in captivity. We believe that elephants, like other forms of wildlife, belong in the wild. All this has brought a very bad name to elephants in captivity,” according to Sukumar. But there is the other side too. There are elephants depicted in Mesolithic Era petroglyphs in Odisha; in Harappan seals that are more that 4,000 years old; in the frescoes of Ajanta. That helps the world get a better understanding of how we in India live alongside wildlife,” Nitin Sekar WWF India’s national lead for elephant conservation and author of the book What’s left of the jungle, said. “Elephants have always been very popular in the arts, mass media and popular culture. They play a certain role in the functioning of natural ecosystems which has to be maintained,” he said. That sometimes means that elephants are brought into captivity,” Sukumar added. That is going to require efforts from all of us.

A day after the Indian documentary film 'The Elephant Whisperers' won an Oscar in the 'best documentary short film' category, a large number of tourists ...

Their work wonderfully highlights the importance of sustainable development and living in harmony with nature,” he tweeted. To Guneet, my Producer and my entire team and finally, to my mother, father and sister who are up there somewhere, you're the centre of my universe. For the respect of indigenous communities. The elephant is my favourite animal and the fact that the film won an Oscar does make me delighted and excited," the tourist said, reported news agency ANI. Directed by Kartiki Gonsalves, the Oscar-winning documentary competed against 'Haul Out,' 'How Do You Measure A Year?' 'The Martha Mitchell Effect,' and 'Stranger At The Gate'. The film's plot revolves around a family who adopts two orphaned baby elephants in Tamil Nadu's Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.