Women’s Day 2023| Guneet Monga: As filmmakers, what we can do is start a conversation through our content

Filmmaker Guneet Monga, whose film The Elephant Whisperers has been nominated for the Oscars, opens up on being a changemaker.

Guneet Monga has put India on the global film map, by backing The Elephant Whisperer which is nominated for Oscars 2023 in the Best Documentary Short category. This is truly a gamechanger, and makes her a changemaker.

Filmmaker Guneet Monga has backed films such as The Lunchbox and Oscar-nominated The Elephant Whisperers.

However, she shies away from being tagged as one. “As a filmmaker, I don’t think we can have the burden of creating change. That comes over the years, with work put together by many associations, organisations, at the educational and government level, that is what creates realistic change. But as filmmakers, what we can do is start a conversation through our content. Like in The Elephant Whisperer, it is about co-existence between humans and animals,” she reasons.

The 39-year-old goes on to add, “When people call me a changemaker, I can only reflect back and look at my career spanning 15 years. I can join the dots and map out the kind of work I got attracted to, the kind of stories I lean into. You will never know if something will go for awards, or get selected at festivals, or hit people globally. All you can do is wake up every morning with intention.”