It is a big day for India at the Oscars. The 95th Academy Awards is being held in Los Angeles with Jimmy Kimmel on his third outing as host.
News just in confirms that Naatu Naatu from RRR has indeed won the Oscars for Best Original Song while The Elephant Whisperers has bagged the honour for Best Documentary Short.
The Elephant Whisperers, directed by Kartiki Gonsalves and produced by Guneet Monga, has won Best Documentary Short Subject at the 95th Academy Awards. The other four nominees in the category were Haulout, The Martha Mitchell Effect, Stranger At The Gate, and How Do You Measure A Year?
The Elephant Whisperers is the first Indian film to win an Oscar in this category and the third to be nominated after The House That Ananda Built and An Encounter With Faces which competed for Best Documentary Short in 1969 and 1979 respectively.
The Elephant Whisperers, set in the Mudumalai National Park, is the tale of an orphaned elephant calf named Raghu in the care of Bomman and Belli, an indigenous couple. The documentary celebrates not just the bond that develops between them as well as the natural beauty of their surroundings. The Elephant Whisperers was released on Netflix in December 2022.
Deepika Padukone is attending as a presenter. Deepika is the third Indian to present an Oscar after Persis Khambatta and Priyanka Chopra. Team RRR – including director SS Rajamouli and actors Ram Charan and Jr NTR – are at the awards and Naatu Naatu will be performed live during the ceremony – Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava will sing, Lauren Gottlieb will dance.
There are several firsts among this year’s slate of nods – all five Best Actor contenders are first time nominees, and a record four Asian actors have received acting nominations, among them Everything Everywhere All At Once actor Ke Huy Quan who has swept this year’s award season and won the Oscar as well. His co-star Michelle Yeoh might be the first Asian winner of the Best Actress Oscar – or Cate Blanchett could win her third statuette. Also in the running is Andrea Riseborough whose controversial nomination was upheld by the Academy after a review. Jamie Lee Curtis won Best Supporting Actress and Steven Spielberg could win his fourth Oscar.
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