'The Elephant Whisperers' makes India proud: The story behind this Oscar-winning documentary short

India was in a celebratory mood today as two homemade films made the country proud at the 95th Academy Awards. While Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whisperers won the Oscars for the best documentary short, the Telugu action flick RRR’s catchy dance number ‘Naatu Naatu’ bagged the prestigious award for best original song.

During her acceptance speech, filmmaker Gonsalves told the audience at the Dolby Theater and the viewers worldwide: “I stand here today to speak for the sacred bond between us and our natural world, for the respect of indigenous communities, and empathy towards other living beings we share space with and finally, for coexistence”.

Here’s what you should about the documentary that made India shine at the Oscars.

What is The Elephant Whisperers about?

Set in the forests of the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, a national park in the state of Tamil Nadu, the 39-minute-long film – produced by Guneet Monga and Achin Jain of Sikhya Entertainment – revolves around the bond of its two human protagonists – Bomman and Bellie – with their two elephant calves – Raghu and Ammu.

The documentary shows the tribal couple belonging to the Kattunayakar community taking care of the orphaned elephant Raghu abandoned by his herd in a village after his mother was electrocuted, according to NPR. 

Later Bellie and Bomman adopt the three-month-old orphan elephant, Ammu.

The film depicts how humans coexist with nature, with Bellie describing the elephant calves as her children in the film, as per Hindustan Times.

Raghu & Ammu 🐘 your whisper just got us an #Oscars congratulations @guneetm @EarthSpectrum for winning the best short documentary for such a beautiful documentary #elephantwhisperer 🐘 pic.twitter.com/JjisfMF2X2

— Roja Selvamani (@RojaSelvamaniRK) March 13, 2023

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Just like humans, as elephants reach adolescence, they tend to become stubborn and stop listening to others. “If they’re allowed to continue that behavior, it doesn’t end well in the long run,” Gonsalves told NPR.

Raghu is later transferred by the forest department to another caretaker (mahout) who is more experienced with adolescent elephants.

This disheartens Bomman and Bellie who terribly miss Raghu. Their emotion is well understood by Ammu who is shown wiping away Bellie’s tears in one of the scenes.

Gonsalves, who made her directorial debut with The Elephant Whisperers, told NPR that this was one of her favorite moments from the documentary.

How did the documentary come to be?

As per NPR, Gonsalves met Raghu when she was once driving home from Mudumalai Tiger Reserve which is located near the Theppakadu Elephant camp in the Nilgiris district.

“While driving home, I met Raghu as a three-month-old calf,” she added.

Gonsalves recalled she was surprised by Raghu’s playfulness. The filmmaker said she met Bomman who then invited her to revisit and get to know the pachyderm.

Gonsalves also described her time spent with the elephant calf. “This documentary was made because I fell in love with Raghu first”, she was quoted as saying by NPR.

Earlier speaking to Indian Express, Gonsalves had said, “I followed Raghu’s story for five years, and had about 450 hours of footage. There are thousands of Raghu baths in there, so many hours of him eating food or playing. But you need to be patient (with something like this), and you get scenes like the one where Bellie tells Ammu to sit down next to her. These are intimate moments, which cannot be planned.”

Speaking to NPR, she said that, through her documentary, she intended the “audience to stop seeing animals as the ‘other’ and start seeing them as one of us”.

“ _The Elephant Whisperers_ helps people understand more about the elephants and their human caretakers, how they love and understand each other, how they’ve learnt to adapt and co-exist. I chose to focus on the positivity of that co-existence, rather than the negative aspect of man-animal conflict. I wanted The Elephant Whisperers to reflect that selfless cooperation, to be that beam of hope,” the filmmaker added.

Where are Bomman and Bellie now?

As per The Hindu, Bomman and Bellie have “moved on” from the Theopakadu sanctuary.

Bomman is taking care of two elephant calves in Dharmapuri in western Tamil Nadu, who were orphaned as their mothers were electrocuted when they came in contact with an illegal electric fence there.

He was in Palacodde forest in Dharmapuri to track these two elephant calves and unite them with a herd or move them to the Theppakadu elephant camp in Mudumalai, reported The Hindu.

Bomman, who works for the Tamil Nadu forest department, told Hindustan Times that he has not been able to watch the documentary as he caring for the elephants. “I still do not know anything about this [Oscar]”.

“But I understand that it is very important because everyone has been telling me that this earned India much glory. So that means a lot to us,” he added.

Taking a turn down memory lane, Bellie remembered the time when a wounded Raghu was brought to her and her husband at Theppakadu Elephant Camp with “very little hope of survival”.

“Every time he fell sick, I would do pujas for his well-being at the temple,” she told The Hindu.

“I used to sleep inside the kraal with him, and he would never leave my side,” she further said.

For Bellie, “elephants are like our children”. “We see it as great service to a child, who lost its mother”, she was quoted as saying by PTI. 

On the documentary’s Oscars win, Belli said, “I do not know about the award. But I am very happy and excited as congratulations are pouring in.”

With inputs from agencies

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