Oscar-winning Elephant Whisperers baby star turns big hit with tourists in Tamil Nadu

Mudumalai:  A large number of tourists thronged Mudumalai Theppakadu elephant camp to catch a glimpse of the baby elephant made famous by the Indian documentary film ‘Elephant Whisperers’, which won an Oscar in the ‘Best Documentary Short Film’ category on Monday.

The documentary competed for the honour with fellow nominees ‘Haul Out,’ ‘How Do You Measure A Year?’ ‘The Martha Mitchell Effect,’ and ‘Stranger At The Gate’. The film’s plot revolves around a family, which adopts two orphan baby elephants in Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve.

“It is such a great moment. It’s a pleasure to be here. The elephant is my favourite animal and the fact that the film won an Oscar does make me delighted and excited,” said a tourist from London.

The director of the Tamil documentary, Kartiki Gonsalves in her speech at the awards said: “I stand here today to speak on the sacred bond between us and our natural world. For the respect of indigenous communities. For entity towards other living beings, we share our space with. And finally for co-existence. Thank you to the academy for recognizing our film highlighting indigenous people and animals. To Netflix for believing in the power of this film. To Guneet my Producer and my entire team and finally, to my mother father and sister who are up there somewhere, you’re the centre of my universe. To my motherland India.”

This is not the first time involving Guneet Monga that won an Oscar. In 2019, Monga’s documentary ‘Period. End of Sentence’ bagged an Oscar in the ‘Documentary Short Subject’ category.