A documentary by Netflix India has bagged an Oscar. Yes, the short documentary “The Elephant Whisperers” has won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short. With this, The Elephant Whisperers is the first Indian production to ever win an Oscar.
Netflix India brought Emmys to India with Delhi Crime and now an Oscar too. This is indeed a great achievement that will always be remembered.
Binged has always appreciated the investment of the platform in documentaries and yes, it finally brought a substantial result.
But the bigger question is, what effect will this Oscar win have on the upcoming documentaries in India? Because it is not only Netflix that is making big budget documentaries but also Prime Video and other platforms.
Well, it will certainly have some impact on the way people perceive documentaries in India. More people will try to find goodness in the short film that made it win the award.
But the past of Netflix India in handling success is not very appreciable. Yes, Delhi Crime won an Emmy, and even the second season was really good. But most Netflix India series is simply mediocre and there does not appear to be much improvement.
We hope that it is not the same with documentaries and they continue making good ones. Because no other platform has ever made any noise in this genre, so it is a great benefit to Netflix nonetheless.