India celebrates with Oscar-winning elephant & 'RRR'
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.
The film's plot revolves around a family, which adopts two orphan baby elephants in Tamil Nadu's Mudumalai Tiger Reserve. The director of the Tamil documentary, Kartiki Gonsalves, and producer Guneet Monga stepped up to collect the golden statuette at the 95th Academy Awards.
In her winning speech, Gonsalves 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."
Shortly after SS Rajamouli's 'RRR' scripted history at the 95th Academy Awards, the film's scriptwriter and Rajya Sabha MP, V Vijayendra Prasad, called it a moment of triumph for the entire film fraternity of India.
V Vijayendra Prasad, who also happens to be the father of film's director SS Rajamouli, was among the members to be recommended for nomination to the Upper House of Parliament by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2022.
On 'RRR' bagging the coveted golden statute at the awards gala in Los Angeles for the chartbuster 'Natu, Natu', continuing its golden streak since bagging the Golden Globe back in January, Prasad said, "For long, I had wished for our movies to make waves in Hollywood. Despite having such rich content, we could never really find a foothold beyond Indian shores. That our film made it to the Oscars and won an award is a moment of triumph for the entire film fraternity of India. Our entire film fraternity can and should celebrate this moment of glory because we have, at last, been able to showcase the wealth of talent that we possess. It is such a vast market out there."
"Sometimes my son (Rajamouli) asks me in what aspects is India the richest in the world. I tell him that our country's richness lies in our storytelling. My son had a conversation with acclaimed filmmaker Steven Spielberg, who told him never to compromise on our culture of storytelling. We will be making a sequel to RRR," he added.
(ANI)