When The Elephant Whisperers, a moving true account of the bond between an Indigenous Indian couple and two orphaned elephants, won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short, it served as a timely reminder.
The film’s director, Kartiki Gonsalves said, stated as she won the award, “I stand here today to speak for the spiritual relationship between us and our natural world, for the respect of Indigenous cultures, for empathy towards other living species we share space with, and lastly, coexistence.
According to The Indian Express, the movie, which serves as Gonsalves’s directorial debut, relates the tale of what transpired after a family from Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve adopted two orphaned Asian elephants. While Gonsalves’ performance in the movie marks a first in her career, she has always loved the outdoors.
My family visited aquariums, natural history museums, and beaches as well as streams. She told NPR that her parents used to pack up my sister and me and take us to state parks and campgrounds.
According to NPR and The Guardian, she witnessed a young elephant receiving a bath from a human caretaker in October 2017 as she was traveling back to her birthplace of Ooty in southern India. Raghu, the name of the calf, would later become the protagonist of the picture.
Gonsalves started conversing with Bomman, one of Raghu’s carers, who suggested that she spend more time with Raghu.
According to Gonsalves, I fell in love with Raghu first, which is why I made this documentary. The three of us would gleefully splash down the river, and I would spend hours cleaning him and rubbing his mouth. He truly adores having his tongue scratched. He took pleasure in tugging my hair and playing in the water. We used to jab each other with our tongues.
According to The Guardian and NPR, the movie also depicts the story of Bomman and Bellie, a middle-aged couple from the Kattunayakan tribe, which has a history of caring for elephants. Later on in the movie, they adopt Ammu, another juvenile elephant, and Raghu is forced to relocate to a facility with carers who are experienced with adolescent elephants. According to BBC News, Ammu wipes Bellie’s tears in one scene as she sobs for their missing family member.
A sadder story about how the climate catastrophe is causing conflict between humans and wildlife surrounds the tenderness of the two elephants’ romantic interaction. Elephants come into populated areas to quench their thirst as a result of the region’s water supply being drier due to the warmer weather.
They might come into contact with electric fences while on that search, though: According to The Guardian, around 550 elephants in the region have perished as a result of such incidents over an eight-year span.
Raghu is a living example of how the habitats for Asian elephants are dwindling due to climate change. When their herd wandered into a nearby settlement, he lost his mother to electrocution. According to me, the story’s bittersweet element was essential to convey my message, Gonsalves told The Guardian.
According to producer Guneet Mongat, creating this story required a lot of labor.
We brought 450 hours of footage with us, including numerous shots of the jungle, and that is why it took so long, she claimed.
The 95th Academy Awards marked a turning point for India because it was the first time the nation has received an Oscar for a Documentary Short.
Gonsalves added in her remarks, “We are grateful to the Academy for honoring our film, which celebrates Indigenous People and animals.
In addition to my motherland, India, she then praised Monga, Bomman, Bellie, her family, and many others.
For Bomman and Bellie, the loss of their elephant son still cast a shade over their satisfaction with the victory.
