Indian filmmaker Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga’s documentary short film The Elephant Whisperers bagged the Oscar for the Best Documentary Short film at the 95th Academy Awards on Monday (IST).

Receiving the trophy at a packed Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, Kartiki said, “We are here to speak for the sacred bond between us and the natural world, for the respect of indigenous communities, an empathy for the other living things that we share our space with and finally, for coexistence.”

The Tamil-language short documentary, currently streaming on Netflix, chronicles the lives of an elderly indigenous couple who take care of an elephant calf named Raghu and forge a bond with him in the process.

“Thank you to the academy for recognising our film, highlighting indigenous people and animals. For Netflix for believing in the power of the film. For Bomman and Bellie for sharing their tribal wisdom. For Guneet, my producer, Sikiya and Douglas Blush- my mentor to my entire team and finally mother, father and sister, who are up there somewhere - you are the centre of my universe and to my motherland India,” Kartiki further said in her acceptance speech.

It competed against contenders like Haulout, How Do You Measure A Year?, A Martha Mitchell Effect and Stranger At The Gate.

A still from The Elephant Whisperers. Netflix

However, another Indian documentary film, Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes, which made it to the nominees for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars, lost to Russia’s Navalny.

All That Breathes revolves around two brothers — Nadeem and Saud — whose lives in Delhi are dedicated to caring for birds at a makeshift basement hospital.

The movie, which won Oeil d’Or (Golden Eye Award) at the 75th Cannes Film Festival was pitted against other documentaries like All The Beauty and The Bloodshed, Fire of Love, A House Made of Splinters and Navalny.