On Monday (March 13), the Indian short documentary film ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ won the ‘Best Documentary Short’ category at the 95th edition of the Oscars.
Directed by Kartiki Gonsalves and produced by Guneet Monga and Achin Jain, the documentary short scripted history by being the first-ever recipient of the Academy Award for an Indian production in the category.
The 41-minute long short competed against other acclaimed films including ‘Stranger At The Gate’, ‘The Martha Mitchell Effect’, ‘How Do You Measure a Year?’ and ‘Haulout.’
We just win the first ever Oscar for an Indian Production!
— Guneet Monga (@guneetm) March 13, 2023
Two women did this! I am still shivering ♥️🐘♥️🐘♥️
In a tweet, producer Guneet Monga wrote, “We just win the first-ever Oscar for an Indian Production! Two women did this! I am still shivering.”
It must be mentioned that only two other Indian shorts, namely, ‘The House That Ananda Built’ (1969) and ‘An Encounter With Faces’ (1979) had previously been nominated in this category.
‘The Elephant Whisperers’ narrates the story of two orphan baby elephants that were adopted by an indigenous family from the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu.
Here’s the energetic performance of “Naatu Naatu” from #RRR at the #Oscars. https://t.co/ndiKiHeOT5 pic.twitter.com/Lf2nP826c4
— Variety (@Variety) March 13, 2023
Interestingly, it also happens to be the directional debut of Kartiki Gonsalves. The short documentary is available on the video streaming service, Netflix.
Besides the ‘Elephant Whisperers’, the song ‘Naatu Naatu’ from the movie ‘RRR’ has won the Academy Award in the ‘best original song’ category.
The song has been composed by veteran music director MM Keeravaani and penned by Kala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj. The film ‘All that Breathes’, directed by Shaunak Sen, was nominated for Oscars in the ‘Best Documentary Feature Film category’ but it failed to bag the coveted award.
