The Elephant Whisperers:
Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga’s Netflix short documentary The Elephant Whisperers won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the 95th Academy Awards. This movie is competing against Haulout, How Do You Measure a Year? The Martha Mitchell Effect and The Stranger at the Gate. CEO Gonzalves dedicated the award to “my motherland, India”. Guneet, in an Instagram post wrote: “Today is a historic day because it is the first Oscar for an Indian production.
Produced by Achin Jain and Guneet Monga, and directed by Kartiki Gonsalves, the 41-minute short film follows a family from Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve who end up adopting two orphaned elephants. The unique thing about this Indian short film is that it is the debut of actor Gonsalves. Earlier, while talking to The Indian Express, Gonsalves shared a little about the making of the short film and said, “I have been following Raghu’s story for five years and have got 450 hours of footage. There are thousands of Raghus bathing.” there, many hours were spent eating or playing. But you have to be patient (and stuff like that), and you’ll get scenes like Bellie telling Ammu to sit next to her. These are intimate, unplanned moments.
Kartiki had spoken to Deadline as well about the love that had come her way post the short’s release, and said, “I’ve got a lot of feedback saying that it portrays the dignity of both the magnificent elephants and the Indigenous people who’ve lived with them and shared with them for centuries.”
RRR:
RRR’s song “Naatu Naatu” won the Oscar for Best Original Song at the 95th Academy Awards. The song is composed by MM Keeravani and features music by Chandrabose and vocals by Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava. After the release of SS Rajamouli’s film on OTT platforms, it got global exposure and the song has received a lot of love from the overseas audience. In his acceptance speech, Keeravani sang an independent song to honor Rajamouli and the entire Indian nation.
Earlier this year, Naatu Naatu won in the same category at the Golden Globes. It also won Best Song at the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Hollywood Critics Association.
