Kartiki Gonsalves is an Indian documentary filmmaker and photographer who directed the documentary film The Elephant Whisperers which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards.
Kartiki is the younger daughter of Timothy A. Gonsalves and Priscilla Tapley Gonsalves, who is from Binghamton, New York. She has one older sister, Danica Gonsalves. She grew up in Ooty, within the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu.
She studied at the Dr. G R Damodaran College of Science in Coimbatore and graduated in 2007, before continuing her studies, focusing on photography at Light & Life Academy, Ooty.
She specializes in nature and wildlife photography and has been recognized by Sony as an Artisan of Imagery in India.
Gonsalves is a documentary filmmaker and photographer who has worked as a camera operator for Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel. She is the director of the documentary film The Elephant Whisperers produced by Guneet Monga and screened on Netflix. The 41-minute documentary was produced at the Theppakadu Elephant Camp, 30 minutes from where Gonsalves grew up.
On March 13, 2023, the film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film at the 95th Academy Awards. It was the first Indian film to win the award.
Kartiki Gonsalves is a Sony Artisan of Imagery India since 2020, specializing in nature and social documentaries. She gives workshops on nature and wildlife photography and has conducted tours of Bangalore and Mysore cities. She travels widely for her work.
Gonsalves is an International League of Conservation Photographers Associate Fellow.
