An epic, engaging documentary, Nilgiris: A Shared Wilderness dives deep into the landscape to tell a unique story of the riveting interplay of nature, wildlife, livelihoods and sustainability.
Published Dec 15, 2024 | 9:00 AM ⚊ Updated Dec 15, 2024 | 9:00 AM
An image of the Nilgiris. (Supplied)
The majestic 5,520 sq km Nilgiris, enveloped by a breathtaking blue-green canvas, has been pleasuring the eyes of those within and around it for ages. Shaped by the forces of nature over 2.5 billion years, these mountains were pitchforked to global attention as India’s first UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) Biosphere Reserve.
An epic, engaging documentary, Nilgiris: A Shared Wilderness dives deep into the landscape to tell a unique story of the riveting interplay of nature, wildlife, livelihoods and sustainability.
Himalayan in scale, the documentary takes an engrossing aerial sweep of the Nilgiris before it zooms in to take stunning 4K footage of man and animal, the sublime and dramatic.
In its hour-long visual story-telling, the camera captures in great detail the elusive leopards and their playful cubs, hornbills and their migratory dragonfly prey, gaurs and more. But beyond these gripping visuals, it is a document of hope, fragility and human lives in a unique symbiotic connection.
Over two years in the making, the project had dozens of top-notch film crew, camerapersons, editors, and researchers fan out deep into the vast expanse of the Nilgiris. Directing the documentary, BAFTA award-winning filmmaker Sandesh V Kadur had his task cut out: To capture the resilience of the geography amidst the rapid changes to the pristine wilderness brought about by human intervention.
An image of the Nilgiris. (Supplied)
The changes were apparent, from colonial-era plantations to the Nilgiri Mountain Railways to the widening tentacles of Ooty town. However, the region remains a treasure trove of secrets and magical creatures.
Determined to go beyond the obvious, Sandesh had to marshal his men and women to capture thousands of hours of footage never before seen in such detail.
The documentary perfectly captured visuals of a sloth bear in a tea garden, black leopards within striking distance of human habitation, a majestic tiger overlooking a village from a slope and so on.
Capturing these took days of toil, patience, endurance and extreme devotion to the craft of filmmaking.
As Sandesh puts it, “This is the story of a new wilderness, a mostly human-made landscape, where wildlife continues to adapt and thrive. Although it’s in a constant state of change, it also shows nature’s resilience; and adaptability to survive the odds — if only we allow them the space to do so.”
Months before the shooting began, the team had to gather data, truckloads of them.
“A lot of research went into the making of the documentary. That usually is the very first step. We had to get to know the landscapes, study a large inventory of books on Nilgiris, and even the poetry linked to the region. We had to know everything about the flora and fauna from multiple sources,” recalls Sandesh, a National Geographic Fellow, recently named the second-ever Explorer Trustee of the National Geographic Society Board.
Nilgiri Tahr. (Supplied)
Sandesh emphasised that Nilgiris was also about the people embedded closely with the region’s lively ecosystem that integrates a unique relationship with its wildlife.
“Research is not just about the books. We spent a lot of time interacting and understanding the stories from their perspectives. Our interactions covered all through the Western Ghats, down below the plains, the whole Masanagudi landscape, all the way up to Ooty, the Boya Valley, Bandipur, Wayanad in Kerala… We tried to cover as much ground as possible,” he said.
The documentary is replete with myriad snapshots of the wild within human habitats. Nocturnal visits by a sloth bear to a house, for instance, add drama to the unique interactions.
Most importantly, behind all these were a bunch of camera crew members, intensely adding value to the whole project.
Associate producer Adarsh NC put this in perspective when he said: “It takes a whole village to make a film of this scale.”
Planning the production took an entire year.
“From permissions to getting all the papers in order from the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka forest departments, we could not leave out anything. Then came the part where we assembled the equipment and the crew, and did umpteen recces before we started shooting. We covered most of the 5,500 sq km area. It was not just sighting of animals for us. You can see a tiger or leopard crossing the road wherever you go. You have to have a story. The whole thing should have a buildup for a story. Plans would change, and we would rebuild it. It was a continuous process at every step,” noted Adarsh.
Sandesh V Kadur. (Supplied)
The documentary has a liberal dose of some of the rarest visuals of the wild captured in this part of the world. But behind each of those moments were hours and days of enduring patience.
“We would sit for days, looking for that perfect shot. The 4K resolution ultra-telephoto lens CN20 was our standard workhorse. It could go from 50mm wide all the way up to 1,500 telephoto zoom. Besides, we also had our drones and shotgun mic to capture ambient sound,” Adarsh explained the tools that helped the project stand out.
“Perseverance was key. We were going to the same location or waiting for that one shot for several days. The hornbill scene took 70 to 80 days. We had to literally go every day to observe the hornbill coming out and the leopard cub sequence. Some days we would sit there from 6 am to 6 pm waiting and it would not show up. There was no guarantee. And yes, these scenes would unfold at quite a distance from us, sometimes more than 500 metres away,” Sandesh recalled.
The scale of work and the criticality of the project demanded it. Co-producer Rohini Nilekani from her Philanthropies elaborated: “With this film, we hope to awaken people to the incredible beauty and biodiversity of this ancient and unique biosphere — the largest protected forest area in the country, now undergoing rapid change driven by human activity. If we wish to continue to conserve it, samaaj [society], sarkaar [government] and bazaar [market] will have to work in unison to nurture this ecosystem. The documentary is a call to action for everyone who feels connected to these sacred landscapes.”
An image during the production of the documentary. (Supplied)
Shooting through the wild, the crew had gathered thousands of hours of footage. But the big task still remained: Editing.
As Sandesh put it: “There was blood on the editing room floor. Even though a shot would be fantastic, if it didn’t fit into the sequence, it wouldn’t make it into the story. It had to be a great shot with the story. A lot of such hard decisions had to be made to cut out some really good footage. We had to distil out the best of the best of the best. That process itself took a lot of time, over six months.”
Nilgiris, the birthplace of sacred rivers, the land of thundering waterfalls and deep gorges now has a visual platform for its remarkable story to be told.
Over the last month, the documentary has been screened for over 4,000 children in the Nilgiris.
Sandesh wants more: “We hope this film will become part of the school curriculum so that children grow up with a greater sense of appreciation for those hills. We want millions to see this work. A huge amount of effort has gone into making this film, and we don’t want to keep it in a closet.”
(Edited by Muhammed Fazil.)
