In TrendsBRICS Summit 2026Sensex TodaySteamhouse India IPO GMPGold and Silver PricesBRICS Summit IndiaBank Strike TodayIndian wildlife filmmakers are dismantling the myth of 'pristine wilderness'Emmy-nominated filmmaker Vijay Bedi, and filmmaker Nitye Sood, discuss why contemporary Indian documentarians are actively pushing back against the Western gaze to place community stewardship, conflict, and overlooked species at the center of their work.By Asmita Pant September 11, 2026, 5:34:21 PM IST (Published)For decades, in natural history programming, human beings and wildlife occupied strictly separate realities. Blue-chip documentaries routinely framed forests as untouched edens, scrubbed indigenous populations out of the frame, and imported an exotic safari gaze that left zero room for the friction of real life. Mainstream narratives inevitably trapped communities in a lazy binary: either branded as lawless poachers or pitied as helpless victims of predator attacks.That inherited Western formula is now facing direct pushback from Indian documentarians determined to shoot their own backyards on their own terms. The shift takes centre stage in India: Epic Wild Stories, a documentary anthology on Animal Planet and Discovery+ that brings together filmmakers to document the country's biodiversity through lived, community-rooted realities.For Emmy-nominated wildlife filmmaker and four-time National Award-winning cinematographer Vijay Bedi, director of the anthology's opening…
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