The Netflix documentary The Ivory Game asks a prescient question to its audiences, “Are we really in our generation going to allow the biggest mammal on earth to disappear?” The extinction of wildlife is a thought haunting conservationists, activists, and forest officials alike, even as animal species face pressures on their fragile ecosystems. Sherni, the latest release on Amazon Prime, addresses these anxieties through the politics around relentless human intrusion into wildlife habitats.
The movie has Vidya Balan playing Vidya Vincent, a Divisional Forest Officer caught up in the complexities of her job precariously balancing tiger conservation with the interests of forest communities who lead a hand-to-mouth existence. A multi-layered bureaucracy, manned by officials often serving their own agendas, spells doom for the striped cat threatened by constant habitat loss. Producer-writer-director Amit V Masurkar does not offer easy answers in a film about healthy ecosystems for b
Vidya Balan bagged the National Award for her unforgettable performance in Sujoy Ghosh’s 2012 thriller, Kahaani, in which she played Vidya Bagchi, a pregnant woman in search of her missing husband. Now, she is getting rave reviews for another Vidya, Vidya Vincent, the ‘Superman’ forest officer in Amit Masurkar’s jungle drama, Sherni.
The 42-year-old actress added: “So if you tell me, I am too short to be an actor, too fat to be an actor, I am too bold to be an actor, I am too brazen or too intelligent or whatever, I am just saying random things, I cannot change who I am but I can still find my way.”