Explained: What makes The Elephant Whisperers worthy of global love, recognition, and of course, the Oscar

Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga’s documentary The Elephant Whisperers made history at the 95th Academy Award for becoming the first film from India to win the Oscar. The nation was filled with joy and pride and expectedly, the makers too. Given the endearing nature of the story and that adorable creature as the central character, love and adulation had to pour in.

What is it about?

The Elephant Whisperers follows the bond that develops between an indigenous couple and an orphaned baby elephant, Raghu, who was entrusted to their care. Set in the Mudumalai National Park in South India, the documentary also highlights the natural beauty of the location. It explores the life of the tribal people in harmony with nature. The subject is both tender and terrifying, it shows two people’s affection towards an elephant but also the loneliness the creatures are saddled with once orphaned.

The tribute that followed

Given how Guneet Monga and the entire team of the Indian documentary The Elephant Whisperers has made the nation proud at the 95th Oscars, congratulations and tributes had to pour in. A Cartoonist also paid tribute to The Elephant Whisperers with his illustration as the film shone. at Oscars 2023.

Under the Twitter name of Green Humour, the post read- “A huge congratulations to @EarthSpectrum and team behind #TheElephantWhisperers for winning the best documentary at the #academyawards2023 !”

Guneet Monga’s exclusive interview

In an exclusive interview with Firstpost, Monga revealed this about the experience of conceiving and making the film, “It was a classic experience. You let the story play out and here you see the elephant grow from a tiny to a bigger baby. That’s how you see the progress of the film and the journey. It is amazing I am sure to see five years of work in forty minutes and the progression of the story and the relation of the baby elephant. Our story is about an orphan baby elephant with the backdrop of a love story.”

When asked about Indian filmmakers not being able to establish the kind of place they deserved in the Oscars, she said, “It is a whole lot of things. I think at the Oscars having an American distributor is very important, having your film released and seen in the US, covered by mainstream media, seen and celebrated there is very important. So, it is not an overnight thing. You don’t get to Oscars overnight. That’s never going to happen. One needs to see the progress and the distribution of the film which is really important. For so many years we have distributed our films to NRI audiences and that doesn’t make the mainstream America or non-Indians look into American content.”

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