- The documentary follows the story of Bomman and Bellie, elephant caretakers belonging to the Kattunayakan tribe. Director Kartiki Gonsalves stated, “I met Raghu when he was exactly three months old,” she added, “I spent about a year and a half with him when he was a tiny baby before this became a documentary.”
- The team spent nearly five years living the ongoing story of these caregivers and their baby elephant, working in a verite mode of letting the daily life and events of Bomman and Bellie tell the story of a life of an orphaned baby elephant (and his sudden unlikely sister, Amu!).
- Our intention in the process of documenting the journey of the protagonists was to create a fully immersive experience of the traditional elephant caregiver mahouts of southern India, in a way that honours the lifestyle and traditions of the Kattunayakan people, an ancient tribal community that Bomman and Bellie belong to who have been living with elephants for centuries.
- The film had its world premiere on 9 November 2022 at Doc NYC Film Festival, a film festival for documentaries in the United States.
- The film was released by Netflix globally on 8 December 2022 for streaming. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards, making it the first Indian film to win an Academy Award in that category at the Oscars.
- On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes website, the film has an approval rating of 100% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 7.7/10.
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