Oscar’s 95th Academy Awards held by the academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science on March 12,2023 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angels; honoring the films released in 2022. India bags 2 Oscars for South Indian Movies. ‘Naatu Naatu’ from RRR- An Indian Telugu movie song to win ‘Best Original Song Award’ at the Golden Globe Awards, Academy Awards and the first song from an Asian film to win the latter. The Award was received by composer MM Keeravani and lyricist Chandrabose.
sMeanwhile, Kartiki Gonsalves directed movie ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ won the Academy Award in the ‘Best Documentary Short Subject’ Category. Kartiki Gonsalves and the producer of the film Guneet Monga received the Award. It is an Indian Tamil language short Documentary film portrays an orphaned elephant calf named Raghu in the care of Bomman and Belli, an indigenous couple.
The film was released by Netflix globally on 8 December 2022 for streaming. It is notable that, earlier this Documentary was nominated for Hollywood Music in Media Awards (2022), IDA Documentary Awards (2022) and shortlisted in DOC NYC Awards.
Kartiki Gonsalves- As GRD Student
Kartiki Gonsalves, was the former student of DR G R Damodaran College of Science, Coimbatore. She is a Documentary filmmaker, photographer and has worked as a camera operator with Animal Planet and Discovery Channel. She’s also an Associate Fellow of International League of Conservation Photographers.
On her Award winning speech, Kartiki 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.” And added “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 and ‘To my motherland India’.”
“To take this documentary, it took over 450 hours and that was covered over a duration of 5 years from 2017 till September 2022”, said Kartiki. While speaking on Kartiki’s achievement, her Alumni Institution GRD, Department of Visual Communication, Head, Prof. Sasikala said, “Our former student Kartiki Gonsalves made India proud by winning the Oscar award. We feel very glad that GRD College has also contributed to this recognition to India. It gave surreal happiness to us. Individual interest is the driving force behind such great achievements. Moreover, as a women she might have gone through many hardships in media and now she stands as a successful women.”
Kartiki- A Positive Inspiration
“Now every parent is afraid of not getting a job if their children study visual communication course. Kartiki proved that when you take something that you are passionate about and do it with a positive attitude, you can conquer anything. She will be a positive inspiration to students who choose Visual Communication as their career”, said Prof. Sasikala, Head, Dept. of Viscom, GRD.
GRD prioritize Alumni
“We give priority to our Alumni and recognize them by inviting them as Chief Guest for many events. We update our curriculum every year and for the best outcome our management supports us with talented faculty and by developing infrastructure. Equivalent Industry exposure like Metropolitan City has been providing to the students. Organizing Short film Festival, Public Relations campaign, exhibitions, fairs, internships, and placement opportunities helps the students in establishing their skills. GRD has State of Art Infrastructure with Studio Preview Theatre which was constructed exclusively for students”, said Prof. Sasikala, Head, Dept. of Viscom, GRD.
