麻豆社

The short documentary The Elephant Whisperers is in the running for an Oscar at this year's Academy Awards.

Shot in the Nilgiri mountains in southern India, it follows the story of an indigenous couple named Bomman and Bellie on the journey of caring for an orphaned baby elephant, Raghu.

Kartiki Gonsalves is the film's director and executive producer. She told Newshour how it all began.

"I was driving to Bangalore and that's when I saw Bomman and Raghu walking on the side of the road," she says.

"I saw this tiny little elephant waddling around, and he just really looked at Bomman as his mother, his father, as everything. It was really beautiful to be able to spend so much time with two really young elephant calves."

(Photo: Raghu and Kartiki Gonsalves. Credit: Kartiki Gonsalves)