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The Elephant Whisperers

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Watch The Elephant Whisperers with a subscription on Netflix.

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Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Kartiki Gonsalves

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We are republishing this review in honor of the 10th anniversary of the passing of Roger Ebert . Read why one of our contributors chose this review here .

Gus Van Sant ‘s “Elephant” is a record of a day at a high school like Columbine, on the day of a massacre much like the one that left 13 dead. It offers no explanation for the tragedy, no insights into the psyches of the killers, no theories about teenagers or society or guns or psychopathic behavior. It simply looks at the day as it unfolds, and that is a brave and radical act; it refuses to supply reasons and assign cures, so that we can close the case and move on.

Van Sant seems to believe there are no reasons for Columbine and no remedies to prevent senseless violence from happening again. Many viewers will leave this film as unsatisfied and angry as Variety’s Todd McCarthy , who wrote after it won the Golden Palm at Cannes 2003 that it was “pointless at best and irresponsible at worst.” I think its responsibility comes precisely in its refusal to provide a point.

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

Van Sant’s “Elephant” is a violent movie in the sense that many innocent people are shot dead. But it isn’t violent in the way it presents those deaths. There is no pumped-up style, no lingering, no release, no climax. Just implacable, poker-faced, flat, uninflected death. Truffaut said it was hard to make an anti-war film because war was exciting even if you were against it. Van Sant has made an anti-violence film by draining violence of energy, purpose, glamor, reward and social context. It just happens. I doubt that “Elephant” will ever inspire anyone to copy what they see on the screen. Much more than the insipid message movies shown in social studies classes, it might inspire useful discussion and soul-searching among high school students.

Van Sant simply follows a number of students and teachers as they arrive at the school and go about their daily routines. Some of them intersect with the killers, and many of those die. Others escape for no particular reason. The movie is told mostly in long tracking shots; by avoiding cuts between closeups and medium shots, Van Sant also avoids the film grammar that goes along with such cuts, and so his visual strategy doesn’t load the dice or try to tell us anything. It simply watches.

At one point he follows a tall, confident African-American student in a very long tracking shot as he walks into the school and down the corridors, and all of our experience as filmgoers leads us to believe this action will have definitive consequences; the kid embodies all those movie heroes who walk into hostage situations and talk the bad guy out of his gun. But it doesn’t happen like that, and Van Sant sidesteps all the conventional modes of movie behavior and simply shows us sad, sudden death without purpose.

“I want the audience to make its own observations and draw its own conclusions,” Van Sant told me at Cannes. “Who knows why those boys acted as they did?” He is honest enough to admit that he does not. Of course a movie about a tragedy that does not explain the tragedy — that provides no personal of social “reasons” and offers no “solutions” — is almost against the law in the American entertainment industry. When it comes to tragedy, Hollywood is in the catharsis business.

Van Sant would have found it difficult to find financing for any version of this story (Columbine isn’t “commercial”), but to tell it on a small budget, without stars or a formula screenplay, is unthinkable. He found the freedom to make the film, he said, because of the success of his “ Good Will Hunting ,” which gave him financial independence: “I came to realize since I had no need to make a lot of money, I should make films I find interesting, regardless of their outcome and audience.”

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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An Oscar for 'The Elephant Whisperers' — a love story about people and pachyderms

Kamala Thiagarajan

Caretaker Bomman with Raghu. "I feel like getting Raghu was a gift from God," he says. Netflix/Screenshot by NPR hide caption

Caretaker Bomman with Raghu. "I feel like getting Raghu was a gift from God," he says.

A tribal woman called Bellie walks barefoot through the lush forests of the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary , a national park in the state of Tamil Nadu, hot on the heels of a baby elephant.

In a soft voice, she says, "I have experienced many losses in my life. My ex-husband was killed by a tiger. This left me feeling scared of the forests. I get scared when I see a tiger." But, she says, "I am a tribal woman, and our people come from the heart of the forest."

She is part of the Kattunayakan community, a tribal group that, for generations, has devoted itself to caring for elephants. "For us Kattunayakans, the well-being of the forest is all that matters," she says.

With stunning visuals of Tamil Nadu's nature, The Elephant Whisperers tells the story of this loving relationship — and won the Oscar in the documentary short film category.

It was a chance meeting with that same baby elephant in October 2017 that changed filmmaker Kartiki Gonsalves's life and spurred her to make the film.

Gonsalves spent her childhood in and around nature in southern India. "My family explored streams and beaches, natural history museums and aquariums. My parents would bundle us up — my sister and I — and would take us out to state parks and camping sites," she says. Her mother loved animals and her father was a photographer. Her grandmother led school trips to local nature reserves. Gonsalves followed in their footsteps.

After graduating with a degree in visual communications from GRD College of Science in the southern Indian city of Coimbatore in 2007, Gonsalves went on to study photography, specializing in wildlife, travel and culture. She then worked in advertising and other jobs but yearned to get back to her passion — photographing nature and wildlife and telling stories of indigenous people and their role in conservation.

The chance elephant encounter came when Gonsalves was making that career transition. "I was in the process of moving back to my hometown of Ooty," she says. And she stopped at the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, close to the Theppakadu Elephant camp. It was established more than a hundred years ago, and she'd been visiting it since she was a child. "While driving home, I met Raghu as a three-month-old calf," she recalls.

Gonsalves was pleasantly surprised by how playful Raghu was. She started talking to Bomman, Raghu's other caregiver, who invited her to return and get to know the animal.

"This documentary was made because I fell in love with Raghu first," she says. "The three of us would happily splash along the river, and I would spend hours scrubbing him and rubbing his tongue. He absolutely loves his tongue being rubbed. He enjoyed pulling my hair and splashing around in the water. We would stick our tongues at each other."

In the film, Gonsalves steps aside and takes viewers to the heart of Theppakadu Elephant camp in a landscape that is the one of the largest undisturbed spaces for the Asian elephant. Here, the Kattunayakan and forest rangers work together to care for abandoned elephants. The documentary follows the journey of Bomman and Bellie and baby elephant Raghu, whose herd wandered into a village searching for water where, after his mother was electrocuted, he was abandoned by the herd . Climate change has caused water supplies in the region to dry up, sending the elephants into areas of human habitation in search of a drink.

The forest department found Raghu in a dire state--he'd been attacked by stray dogs and had maggots in open wounds. The forestry workers tried, unsuccessfully, to reunite Raghu with his family. No one thought Raghu would survive, but they gave him to Bellie and Bomman to try.

Bomman and Bellie with Raghu. Netflix/Screenshot by NPR hide caption

Bomman and Bellie with Raghu.

As Bomman and Bellie nourish Raghu, their own relationship thrives. The 40-minute documentary was whittled down from more than 450 hours of raw footage and painstakingly filmed over the last five years, says Gonsalves.

She wanted people to understand what beautiful beings elephants were and to recognize and respect their intelligence. That understanding, she hopes, would help protect their habitat — which the Asian elephant is losing at a rapid pace . Studies cite encroachment, climate change and India's hunger for development as reasons.

Why Elephants Pose A Threat To Rohingya Refugees

In The Elephant Whisperers , Bomman and Bellie care for Raghu and one other abandoned calf – sunny and bright Ammu. When elephants reach adolescence, just like human teenagers, they can go through a phase when they're stubborn and don't tend to listen. "If they're allowed to continue that behavior, it doesn't end well in the long run," says Gonsalves. An elephant calf needs love and affection while growing up, but even in a wild herd, the adult elephants discipline the adolescent elephant, Gonsalves says. The forest department takes Raghu away from Bomman and Bellie to give him to another caretaker who had more experience handling adolescent elephants. The separation anxiety, however, is intense, and Bomman and Bellie miss Raghu desperately.

GPS Trackers In Fake Elephant Tusks Reveal Ivory Smuggling Route

And just like their human partners, the animals show great emotion. In one scene, baby elephant Ammu wipes away Bellie's tears when she is heartbroken over Raghu moving away. In another scene, Ammu reaches out and curls her arm around Bomman's, who is about to fetch her some milk in the early hours of the dawn, drawing him closer. These are some of Gonsalves favorite moments in the footage.

The elephants are a part of the tribe's larger community, too. Raghu even plays football with neighborhood kids.

"A lot of these moments were unexpected and that is the true beauty of telling a story as it unfolds," she says. "With a documentary, there is no script. Only spontaneous moments caught when life is lived."

"I wanted the audience to stop seeing animals as the 'other' and start seeing them as one of us," she says. " 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." Kamala Thiagarajan is a freelance journalist based in Madurai, Southern India. She reports on global health, science, and development, and her work has been published in the New York Times, The British Medical Journal , BBC, The Guardian and other outlets. You can find her on twitter @kamal_t

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Emmys viewership up 60% to show’s largest audience in 3 years, india celebrates as ‘the elephant whisperers’ oscar win hands country first competitive academy award for directing-producing.

By Matthew Carey

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Director Kartiki Gonsalves and producer Guneet Monga became the first Indian filmmakers to claim competitive Oscars after their short documentary The Elephant Whisperers won the Academy Award tonight.

Gonsalves gave thanks to “my motherland, India,” as she accepted the award.

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“I stand here today to speak for the sacred bond between us and our natural world,” Gonsalves said as she began her acceptance speech, “for the respect of Indigenous communities and empathy towards other living beings we share our space with, and finally, for coexistence.”

She added, “Thank you to the Academy for recognizing our film, highlighting Indigenous people and animals, to Netflix for believing in the power of the film, to Bomman, Bellie for sharing their sacred, tribal wisdom. To Guneet, my producer… and to Douglas Blush, my mentor, and my entire team. And, finally, to my mother, father, and sister who are up there somewhere. You are the center of my universe.”

RELATED: Oscars TV Review: Ceremony Tries To Move Past The Slap With Conventional But Cheery, History-Making Night

Several Indian films have previously been nominated for Academy Awards, including Salaam Bombay! (1988), Lagaan (2001) and last year’s documentary feature Writing With Fire . The late Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray earned an honorary Academy Award over 30 years ago.

In his opening monologue, Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel noted that in last year’s ceremony several awards, including Best Documentary Short, were shunted to a pre-show and didn’t air live (truncated versions were inserted into the telecast). Kimmel said, “You told us you wanted all the categories back in.”

The win marked yet another victory for Netflix in the Documentary Short Subject category. The streamer previously won in 2017 for The White Helmets , directed by Orlando von Einsiedel and produced by Joanna Natasegara, and in 2019 for Period. End of Sentence. , directed by Rayka Zehtabchi and produced by Melissa Berton.

Netflix had a second contender in the same category this year, The Martha Mitchell Effect , directed by Anne Alvergue and produced by Beth Levison.

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Elephant (2003)

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The Elephant Whisperers review – touching story of a couples life with elephants

This short documentary is an inspirational and emotional watch, which has made me want to run away and devote my life to looking after elephants.

We review the Netflix documentary film The Elephant Whisperers, which was released on December 8th, 2022.

Set in the beautiful and peaceful rural backdrops of a South Indian village, this India-set short documentary tells the heartwarming story of the first couple to successfully raise two baby elephants in the Theppakadu Elephant Camp . They devote their lives to loving and caring for the orphans, forging unique and inspiring bonds with the gentle giants, and becoming one loving family. 

The Theppakadu Elephant Camp is one of the oldest elephant camps in Asia and has been helping rehabilitate elephants for over 140 years. In the 41 minutes this Netflix documentary lasts, we get a small insight into these gentle, and sometimes cheeky, giants and are shown how they are raised to become independent and have a good life. We see the elephants being washed, fed, playing with balls, having cuddles, and roaming free across a vast amount of land. They have to wear bells so they can easily be found in the forest if they wander off too far and get lost. 

Bomman and Bellie are truly an inspiring couple, and their openness and devotion to helping the baby elephants Ragu and Ammu filled me with such hopeful emotion and made me think how the world needs more people like them in it. Bellie is the only woman assigned to work with baby elephants, and after losing her first husband and her daughter, you can see how she gives all her love to the elephants and raises them like her own children. Watching their relationship is beautiful; how these majestic animals form a bond with the couple, tagging along on their activities, is magical. Ragu is assigned a new caregiver throughout the documentary, and this is heartbreaking for the couple and the viewer; this is where I cried. I know I’m a softie when it comes to animals but this felt like a stab to the heart. 

The cinematography is beautiful, we see not just elephants but monkeys, bears, and birds in the forest, and animals and humans roaming free and living together. This coexistence is a peaceful, almost idyllic life, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have hardships. While elephants are kind and emotional creatures, they are also dangerous. Bomman was stabbed by a tusk accidentally and now can no longer work with the big elephants. Although the way he’s transforming the babies’ lives, I think he’s okay with this. 

Soft, classical music is used throughout, and this builds the poetic and peaceful nature of the documentary. There are subtitles available, as it’s not in English. For the short amount of time, it takes to watch, I felt I went on an emotional journey in this documentary. It packs a small punch and is definitely worth the watch, especially if you love elephants.

Baby Ragu and Ammu’s lives have only been made possible by the love and care given by Bomman and Bellie, and I hope they continue their inspiring work and teach future generations who will have the same successes in years to come. 

What did you think of the Netflix documentary film The Elephant Whisperers ? Comment below.

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All You Need To Know About Oscar-Winning Documentary Short Film 'The Elephant Whisperers'

The elephant whisperers, an indian documentary short film, has received a nomination for best documentary short film at the 95th academy awards..

It's time to rejoice as India finds its way to the Oscars 2023 winning list!

We are all aware that dogs are often referred to as a man's best friend, however in this instance, that is not the case. The mighty Elephants become the finest friends in this lovely tale. Yes, you read that right.

The Elephant Whisperers, an Indian documentary short film, had received a nomination for Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards and has now won!

Filmmaker Guneet Monga also shared her happiness on Twitter. Check it out here:

Tonight is historic as this is the first ever Oscar for an Indian production. Thank you Mom Dad Guruji Shukrana 🙏🏾 To my Co-Producer Achin Jain, Team Sikhya, Netlflix, Aloke, Sarafina, WME Bash Sanjana. My lovely Husband Sunny. Kartiki for bringing & weaving this story pic.twitter.com/BCOFFdC7Jg — Guneet Monga (@guneetm) March 13, 2023

Truth-seeking on a shorter timeline. Presenting the nominees for Documentary Short Subject… #Oscars #Oscars95 pic.twitter.com/kM3sDkoC5R — The Academy (@TheAcademy) January 24, 2023

What is The Elephant Whisperers about?

The 41-minute documentary short film, which was directed by Kartiki Gonsalves, follows a family who adopts two orphan baby elephants in Tamil Nadu's Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. Two abandoned elephants and their keepers form an everlasting friendship in the movie. The movie resembles a safari, where the viewer silently takes in the coexistence of nature and man.

The movie tells the touching tale of an indigenous couple who are given Raghu, an orphaned elephant, to care for. The plot chronicles the couple's efforts to secure Raghu's survival and recuperation as they travel together. The little documentary expertly weaves the story of how the couple eventually falls in love with the magnificent animal. The Elephant Whisperers shows the beauty of exotic wildlife, unforgettable natural regions, and the people and animals who share this space against the backdrop of life in South India's wild areas.

The film’s official synopsis reads, “Bomman and Bellie, a couple in south India, devote their lives to caring for an orphaned baby elephant named Raghu, forging a family like no other.”

For the unversed, Achin Jain and Guneet Monga produced the movie.

After hearing about the nomination, Guneet Monga tweeted, “Today’s nomination strengthens my faith in stories with heart and people who tirelessly submit themselves to a larger vision. It is truly for them! It is the innocence and honesty that transcended these boundaries and made The Elephant Whisperers travel from a small quaint town of Ooty to the biggest stage of Cinema! This journey has also been about the representation and making our country proud. So here’s to India, and here’s to all of us…. RRR and All That Breathes. OMG! This is for INDIA,” Monga tweeted.

The Elephant Whisperers is nominated at the Oscars! This film is an ode to devotion and love..an ode to unconditional selfless love for the beautiful baby ellie Raghu who felt all the emotions like us humans but only two could hear his whispers - Bomman and Bellie. pic.twitter.com/UNHr8uZOKv — Guneet Monga (@guneetm) January 24, 2023

What made viewers like The Elephant Whisperers?

Many people thought the movie was a brilliant idea when the trailer first came out. The audience was drawn in by both the premise and the trailer's simplistic yet intriguing look.

The representation of unadulterated love between people and animals is another element that helped viewers relate to the movie. Some others even praised how elegantly a wonderful story was depicted on OTT.

One person wrote in the comments section of the trailer, “Best film I’ve watched in a long time. Entirely wholesome, inspiring and moving. The filming was beautiful, the editing was brilliant, and the story was wonderfully communicated. Well done”

Another wrote, “What a beautifully made Documentary… 41 minutes fly as you get immersed in this wonderful story. Living in TN I have put it on my bucket list to visit Mudumalai “

A third wrote, “wow just beautiful...super we need more of these and everyone in this world should watch and appreciate these type of documentaries. we Indians have so much in us that we hardly explore and bring out our cultures , traditions and the bond with nature and animals . hope we pledge to preserve these vast jungles and take utmost care of our nature Mother earth.”

What are the other films in the same category?

'Haulout', 'How do you measure a year'?, 'The Martha Mitchell Effect', and 'Stranger At The Gate' are among the other films nominated in this category.

On November 10, 2022, the documentary was screened at the DOC NYC 2022 Film Festival, a documentary festival in the United States of America.

Guneet is making his third appearance at the Oscars, while Sikhya Entertainment is making its second. 'End of Sentence', which was nominated in 2010 for Guneet Monga's Kavi, won the prize for Documentary Short in 2019.

'All That Breathes' and the movie 'RRR' are also up for Oscars in addition to this Indian documentary.

On March 13 (IST), (today) the 95th Academy Awards is being presented. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel served as host for the event for the third time.

(To read more such stories related to movies and shows released on OTTs, keep reading Indiatimes BINGE )

Iraa Paul writes for Indiatimes Entertainment section - She has equal passion for hot coffee and hot OTT content. She is a pro at suggesting movies and series to watch on the weekend or when you are having a bad day.

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‘The Elephant Whisperers’ documentary review: A strikingly-lush safari on the co-existence of man and nature

Kartiki gonsalves’ documentary, which has been shortlisted for the 95th oscars in the documentary short film category, takes the audience on a mesmerising visual safari.

Updated - December 28, 2022 06:15 pm IST

Published - December 27, 2022 03:57 pm IST

Bomman and Raghu in a still from ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ | Photo Credit: Netflix

Surrounded by the Nilgiris, and just beyond the Mayar river, Bomman, Bellie, and their child Raghu (an elephant) live in the heart of the Theppakadu Elephant camp , at the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. In her short documentary, Kartiki Gonsalves follows this family of three, across changing seasons of the forest.

Gonsalves’ documentary, which has been shortlisted for the 95 th Oscars in the Documentary Short Film category, takes the audience on a mesmerising visual safari as the trees change colour, the river gets replenished, and later in the summer, the forest burns in the heat. That is when Bomman and Bellie were given the charge of Raghu, an injured baby elephant separated from its herd. While Gonsalves’ focus remains on the bond that develops between Raghu and his caretakers, she makes quiet but effective points on the perennial human-animal conflict. The trio’s tale is also a crucial insight into when forest officials fail to reunite an elephant calf with its herd .

Belonging to the Kattunayakan tribe, Bomman and Bellie’s life revolve around this forest. This is where their ancestors had worked to protect, and it is what they hope to pass along to their grandchildren. “We live off the forest, but we also protect it,” says Bellie, whose husband was killed by a tiger. This creates a chasm between her and the forest and she begins to fear the place that she grew up in. Raghu’s early life followed a similar trajectory. He was separated from his herd after his mother died of electrocution. Bellie, who had never taken care of elephants and has recently lost her own child, and Raghu, who has not known a life around humans, are united in their effort to alleviate the sorrow they have suffered in the same forest. For Bomman, taking care of Raghu are the first baby steps he re-takes into continuing his grandfather’s and father’s legacy. Having been hurt by an adult tusker before, Bomman has been assigned by the Forest Department to take care of the younger elephants.

The Elephant Whisperers (Tamil)

There is a solid theme of the symbiosis between nature and man that runs like a constant thread through the 41-minute duration of the film, during which Bomman, Bellie, and Raghu’s lives enter unchartered but exciting territories in each other’s presence.

As their family expands, Raghu gets a new sibling in Ammu, a new calf that Bomman and Bellie are assigned to care for. With this, the documentary informs us that Bomman and Bellie become the ‘first couple to successfully raise two orphaned elephants in South India’. Gonsalves’ work is effective in delivering this statistic, despite it being a grim one given how it foregrounds the care that goes into the task of raising an elephant among humans. Despite this, Gonsalves doesn’t shy from addressing the issues that led to Raghu losing his mother. The documentary is narrated by Bomman and Bellie only, and in telling the story of their life with Raghu, human’s tampering with nature seamlessly becomes part of their conversation with the audience.

It is this seamlessness that Gonsalves extends to the visuals of the documentary that make for an immersive experience. The camera, though constantly documenting the daily routine of the family, does not disrupt the personal space it occupies. Bomman and Bellie are also never taken out of the forest to tell their story, with the viewer eagerly following behind Bomman as he talks about Raghu’s picky eating, or sitting beside Bellie as she recalls her first meeting with Raghu.

In that way, Gonsalves’ work mimics a safari, where the audience quietly observes the co-existence of nature and man, as Bomman, Bellie, and Raghu invite you into a space that is becoming scarcer by the day.

The Elephant Whisperers is currently streaming on Netflix

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ on Netflix, A Short Documentary About The “Beauty of Wild Spaces”

Where to stream:.

• The Elephant Whisperers

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Inside the Mind of a Dog’ on Netflix, the Canine-Brain Documentary That's as Fascinating as it Sounds

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Filmed in 2019 in South India by director Kartiki Gonsalves, The Elephant Whisperers is a documentary short that aims to share the “beauty of wild spaces” in India and the world.

THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Bomman and Bellie are two elephant caretakers in Tamil Nadu. The Elephant Whisperers chronicles their special relationship with an orphaned baby elephant whom they’ve named Raghu as they nurse him back to health and share how the relationship with Raghu (and other elephants in their care) have changed their lives until he’s forcefully relocated to another sanctuary.

What Will It Remind You Of?: Unlike most animal documentaries, The Elephant Whisperers isn’t a warning about an almost-extinct creature at the hands of vicious humans or inhumane practices in our everyday lives. Instead, it’s more about learning and bonding with the animals — like My Octopus Teacher .

Performance Worth Watching: Bellie’s story is moving, as caring for elephants has filled the void left by her daughter who passed away young. She shares caretaking now with her granddaughter, who is learning to love the majestic creatures as part of her family.

Memorable Dialogue: Indian culture reveres elephants and other animals as an ode to the shared land and life. “This is God’s presence in my life,” Bomman says about his bond with Raghu. “Without him we’d have nothing.”

Sex and Skin: Nothing to see here.

Our Take: If you’re an animal lover or have ever wanted to visit an elephant sanctuary, this documentary is for you. The 41 minute piece spins a beautiful story about love and family in a rural India village where elephants and other wild animals live amongst humans in harmony.

Focusing on one specific relationship that caretakers Bomman and Bellie have with an abandoned elephant, the documentary showcases the unique bond between the animal and human. The strength of The Elephant Whisperers is comparing this bond to that of parents and children, and showing Bomman and Bellie’s exuberant personas as they interact with the elephants. It’s also a beautiful, rare look at how integral these animals can be to a society, as we see the next generation of caretakers learning how to bathe and play with the elephants.

The Elephant Whisperers is a heartwarming look at the bond between humans and animals, and at a runtime of less than an hour, it’s worth a view.

Our Call: STREAM IT. This short and sweet documentary is a reminder that nature’s beauty is all around us and we can learn so much from the others that inhabit this earth alongside us.

Radhika Menon ( @menonrad ) is a TV-obsessed writer based in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared on Vulture, Teen Vogue, Paste Magazine, and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.

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‘The Elephant Whisperers’ wins the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film

The Elephant Whisperers has won the 2023 Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film and it is a proud moment for Indians. Helmed by Kartiki Gonsalves and produced by Guneet Monga, this 41-minute short documentary exploring the relationship between orphaned elephants and their caretaker won the hearts of the jury at the 95th Academy Awards.

The films that were in the race along with The Elephant Whisperers were Haulout, How Do You Measure a Year?, The Martha Mitchell Effect and Stranger At The Gate .

‘The Elephant Whisperers’ wins the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film. Congratulations! #Oscars #Oscars95 pic.twitter.com/WeiVWd3yM6 — The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 13, 2023

About The Elephant Whisperers

The Elephant Whisperers captures the heartfelt story of a mahout couple – Bomman and Bellie and their inexplicable bond with an orphaned baby elephant, Raghu. The documentary explores the special bond that the couple shares with Raghu as they protect him from poachers and raise him.

While this is Gonsalves’ first win at the Oscars, Monga has had an experience of this thrill in 2020 when the film Period. End Of Sentence won an Academy Award as she was one of the producers of this short documentary back then.

Monga took to Twitter after the Academy Award win was announced for The Elephant Whisperers .

We just win the first ever Oscar for an Indian Production! Two women did this! I am still shivering ♥️🐘♥️🐘♥️ — Guneet Monga (@guneetm) March 13, 2023

For the unversed, this is Gonsalves’ directorial debut. Before this, she had a successful career as a wildlife and social documentary photographer, photojournalist, and cinematographer. Earlier, both Gonsalves and Monga had shared how long it took them to make the film that’s receiving a whole lot of love today.

From working closely with the indigenous Kattunayakan tribe to spending a long time observing and taking notes about the Mudumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu, The Elephant Whisperers took nearly five years to make.

Hero and Featured Images: Courtesy IMDb

Romaa Daas is a birdie whose eyes glistens when she hears about art, architecture, and décor. She’s passionate about reading novels especially one that is hardbound. When not working, she’s busy binge-watching K-dramas, and other movies and planning her next itinerary. Her latest fascination is trekking. Romaa is a journalism postgraduate. She has worked with several media organisations in the past including Thomson Reuters and India Today.

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• Nov 2, 2018

Elephant - Alan Clarke (1989)

Elephant is a British short film directed by Alan Clarke and produced by Danny Boyle and BBC TV Northern Ireland. The film is set in Ireland in 1989 at the end of ‘The Troubles’. Because of the films time and place of release, audiences resonated with the film and its subject matter as it was relevant at the time. Elephant also had a documentary style which reflected the events of the era and made the films tone rather dark and cold.

The films budget is reflected in the film by the cheap 16mm film which was used to capture the film and the Steadicam tracking shots used throughout most of the film give the picture an amateurish but uncomfortably real aesthetic. Alan Clarke is considered to be a pioneer of the Steadicam. The film has been the inspiration to many other films who payed homage by using the Steadicam tracking shot. Unusually, the film has no narrative, dialogue or characterisation of any sort. The film is very implicit and requires extra knowledge of world events and history to give the film meaning and therefore requires and active viewing.

The motivation for the 18 murders throughout the film is never given to the audience and therefore the enigma is never answered, and conflict is never resolved, referring to the denial of the issues going on in Northern Ireland at that time. The film is a social commentary for this reason.

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See  link  for photo. 

Of all the members of the animal kingdom we think of as akin to humans — chimps, dolphins, whales, perhaps (if we’re being honest about it) our dogs — elephants may be the most movingly and preternaturally aware. Because you can see how intelligent they are. You see it in a chimp’s face, too, of course, but elephants have that special pensive, lost-in-the-ages quality.

These lumberingly noble, sad-eyed creatures, whose defining features — the massive ears and extended trunks — appear to have been sculpted out of modeling clay by a God who couldn’t decide whether he was making a clown or a sage, can live to 60 or 70 and are part of reverent extended families (they bond by delicately entwining their trunks).

The reason we say that they “never forget” is that they carry the ancient weight of their experience in every movement and action, in every furrowed crease of their thick gray hides, as if their bodies wore the wrinkled folds of everything they’d been through. They have a different vibe, a different rhythm from any other animal. You might call it meditative.

“Elephant,” a Disneynature documentary narrated by Meghan Markle (or, as she’s billed here: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex), follows a herd of elephants, all from the same family, as they spend eight months trekking 1,000 miles back and forth across the Kalahari Desert in search of water. 

They’ve been making this same pilgrimage for eons, starting (as the movie does) in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, a lush oasis that springs to life each year thanks to a massive infusion of water. But then, just as suddenly, the paradise turns to dust, and the elephants must wander the Kalahari in a time-honored line, trekking from one semi-dry water hole to the next, as if they were stepping stones.

The pull of a good Disney nature doc, and this is where the luxe resources of the corporation come in, is that the filmmakers (led, in this case, by director Mark Linfield) have the freedom to plant their cameras in unspoiled habitats, filming wild animals for months on end, so that the patterns, rituals, and personalities they observe come into focus in an unforced way.

Are the “stories” imposed? The slyness of the Disney nature aesthetic, going back to the 32-minute 1950 True-Life Adventures short “In Beaver Valley” (a schoolroom perennial of my youth), is that they are and they aren’t. The critters don’t actually have names, of course, and the films depend on the narrator to lend everything a storybook quality that dances between affectionate and coy. Yet the animal behavior patterns the films are out to describe in human form — the delinquent kid, the leader protecting his or her pack, the survival instinct that drives the rituals of food and shelter — are all too real.

The elephant kingdom is a matriarchy, and “Elephant” presents us with a herd led by the 50-year-old Gaia, who has lived through every hardship there is (as well as her sixth and final set of teeth); her 40-year-old sister, Shanti, is ready to take over when the tusk is passed. Shanti is also the mother of one-year-old Jomo, the eager, wide-eyed elephant kid who must make the rite of passage to adulthood.

Meghan Markle does an inviting version of the wholesome but amused Disney narrator singsong as she delivers lines like, “Shani has already lost track of Jomo. There he is!” [Jomo twirls his trunk around in the water like a helicopter blade.] “What is he doing? It’s time for a pool party!” Which looks more like a happy mud party.

There are awesome aerial shots that reveal, like crop circles, the historical network of elephant paths and water circles that connect the desert. There are small moments of drama, like Gaia lifting a baby calf out of the mud to keep it from suffocating. (It’s a tricky maneuver, and she takes mud out of his mouth and trunk with extraordinary care and finesse.) And some of the movie is simply a dazzling African-menagerie creature cavalcade, with guest cameos from zebras, giraffes, cheetahs (including a to-die-for furball cheetah cub), carmine bee-eater birds who look like robins dressed in Versace, a water buffalo who bears a striking resemblance to Thomas Jefferson, and speedy warthogs who become Jomo’s playmates.

When the elephants cross the Zambezi River with hungry crocodiles all around and the largest waterfall in the world threatening to suck them in the wrong direction, the film briefly generates do-or-die suspense.

Yet “Elephant,” which will drop on Disney Plus on April 3, still feels like an hour-long safari that’s been padded out to 85 minutes. That it moves at an elephant’s stately, loping pace is actually rather welcome; kids will feel like they’re on an elephant’s wavelength. But the herd’s endless quest to find water becomes a repetitive (and rather dry) theme. And to the extent that super-square anthropomorphic Disney filmmaking isn’t merely a form but a skill, I never felt overwhelmingly close to Gaia or Shanti or Jomo.

The Disney nature films have always had a certain hermetic quality, but this one feels more sealed-off than usual. Could it have something to do with the fact that ivory poaching is decimating the world’s elephant population? (In 1979, there were 1.3 million elephants; now, it’s down to 400,000.)

In its way, a film like “Elephant” can remind us (and especially children) of what nature is all about. But it probably wouldn’t be a bad thing if the film clued us into why the elephant journey it presents, in spirit, as eternal may now be anything but.

https://variety.com/2020/film/ reviews/elephant-review- meghan-markle-1203548438/

(H, HoHo, PC, LLL, VVV, SS, N, AA, DD, M) Humanist postmodern worldview about students being gunned down by two of their peers, with strong homosexual content includes students discuss in class whether you can tell if someone is homosexual and two male students kiss in the shower, and possible politically correct viewpoint about homosexuality; at least 25 obscenities, including many “f” words, four light profanities, obscene gesture, and sounds of girls forcing themselves to vomit after eating salads; some bloody, very intense and disturbing violence includes teenage boy calmly plays violent video game shooting people (some in the back), teenage boys shoot fellow students at point blank range, blood splatters library books, blood smears on school floor, student shoots teacher in the back, teenage boys fire new automatic weapon into woodpile; teenage boys kiss in shower; rear female nudity of girl in gym showers in long shot and teenage boys shown naked from waste up as they kiss in private shower; teenage boy stops drunken father from driving; cafeteria employees smoke marijuana; and, deceit and teenager thinks killing people in real life is fun and humorous.

GENRE: Drama

More Detail:

ELEPHANT, the winner at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, is an experimental movie based on the school shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., which left 13 students murdered and several wounded. It’s a day in the life movie that follows many of the victims around the school before the shooting and the two murderers as they kill time in one’s house before they carry out their deadly plan. The movie stars actual students from Portland, Ore. It mostly shows the student victims walking around the halls, eating lunch, dealing with an alcoholic father, attending a discussion class, doing work at the photography lab, shelving books at the library, playing tag football, and talking to one another. The murderers are shown playing a violent video game, playing Beethoven on the piano, watching a history show about Adolph Hitler on TV, firing their new gun, and kissing in the shower.

ELEPHANT offers no solid answers as to why the murders took place, though it suggests that violent video games, media violence, parental neglect, and sexual repression may each have played a role. The movie is bookended by shots of clouds rolling by in the sky, suggesting that nature is oblivious to humanity and its issues. This seems to be a relatively humanist, heartless way of looking at human life and teenage violence.

A few pundits have suggested that ELEPHANT’s writer/director Gus Van Sant has made a pointless, aggravating movie that adds nothing to the school-shooting phenomenon that plagued the U.S. a couple years ago. Most, however, have found the movie a harrowing experience that, in their minds, wisely tells viewers to avoid easy answers, including “easy” solutions, such as cutting down or eliminating video game violence.

Letting viewers make up their own minds about events is, indeed, a valid approach for a filmmaker. Most of the activities the student victims do before the shootings, however, are rather aimless, just as aimless as the way in which the murderers pick out their targets. This also indicates a humanist worldview.

ELEPHANT contains, however, one short scene of a science teacher in his class, and there are shots of another class talking about whether you can tell if someone is homosexual or not, just by the way they act and dress. The camera also follows one student working on his school photography to build his professional portfolio. In another subplot, a student, John, is shown coping with his drunken father as they drive to school. John leaves his father in the car, to be picked up later by his brother, and drops the car keys at the principal’s office for his mom to pick up. Afterwards, when John and his father meet outside the school while the murderers kill their victims inside, there is a palpable, though understated, sense of relief in both John and his father as they find out that each other is unharmed.

Thus, there seems to be little real academic activity occurring at this school. The audience doesn’t know if Van Sant simply finds such activity uninteresting or if he is actually making a comment on the aimless quality of so many public high schools in America. Either way, ELEPHANT is so bereft of perspective that it ultimately does come across as a somewhat pointless exercise. The killers come off as the most strongly developed characters, and the homosexual references seem to be the most gratuitous elements of all. At least, the movie doesn’t over-sensationalize its violent topic, though the issue is sensational enough.

Please address your comments to:

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Fine Line Features

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Web Page: www.flf.com

SUMMARY: ELEPHANT, the winner at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival, is an experimental movie based on the deadly school shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado. Despite some captivating moments, ELEPHANT ultimately comes across as a pointless, aimless exercise, because it declines to take a strong stand on anything.

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A daring thief enters an abandoned temple in search of its riches.

  Age: 13+

9m25 / Drama , Fantasy / 2006

by Bassam Kurdali

Produced at:   Blender Institute

Music:   Jan Morgenstern

Language:   English

Subjects:   communication , fantasy , guide , imagination , imposition , insecurities , machine , reality , surrealism , system , tour , violence

Software:   Blender , GIMP

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Elephants Dream

"Proog tours Emo through a dream-like world."

Elephants Dream is a short film about two people who have different visions of the surreal world in which they live. The film is a milestone in open source CG animation production. It was the first CG animated short made in a team-based environment that was produced almost completely with free tools, received a wide distribution around the world and made the source files of the production available to the public.

Created as part of the first Open Movie Project, an idea conceived by Ton Rosendaal for improving the capabilities of the open source 3D animation software Blender, Elephants Dream presents a highly subjective narrative in which staging is used to express the internal world of the characters.

A stylized, surreal aesthetic mixes futuristic and retro elements. The short focuses on the relationship between two main characters and their interaction. One of them tries to explain the beauties of the world he imagines to the other and conflict surfaces when the second character grows skeptical and ends up not accepting the ideas. The first one reacts desperately, trying to impose them. Bassam Kurdali, director of Elephants Dream, states that the story is a parable of human relationships, and that it hints at how it is better to share ideas than force them on others.

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