The dynamic duo - Oliver and Ivo

 Ivo and Oliver

A lot of people are dedicated and committed to their work but only a few works benefit the world beyond ovation. If people with such credentials are gifted with the cool to face the bizarre environments and readily socialize with people across cultures irrespective of their officialdom, they would also possess the power to inspire a million other people. Over the past two years on most of my visit Hospet, I used to hear about two film makers from Germany who were shooting on Sloth bears. Whether it was a stint to conduct a workshop or to be part of a study team there used to be narratives about the adventures of the duo. Crawling into the rock crevices to place their camera to get rare footage, spending days together upon a rickety machan or crash landing from a of a hot air balloon upon a rock and so on. They were going to heights in order to film the unseen life of this so much familiar character in the Hindu mythology.

Atop Jog falls

Filming at Daroji

On a sunny afternoon in last summer we had huddled up a class of pre teachers for an audio visual session in the dormitory at the Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary.  As though out from the blue three figures squeezed into the dingy place. Every body was astonished to see these white men. The jubilant duo had tagged on to Tobby Sinclair a wildlife writer from Delhi. They had a good news- the film they were shooting here during the last season had bagged the prestigious Green Oscar award for the year 2013. Further they were here to shoot more footage on a larger format for the Disney.  They very humbly sat through our session and whole-heartedly accepted the modest of thanksgiving we offered. Further we sat through on a couple of occasion to learn more about their work.

In the cave waiting for " Bhaloo"

Oliver is a professional biologist through studies at the University of Hamburg.  His focus was Zoology, Geology, Hydrology, Morphology and Fish science.  Under the guidance of Prof. Harald Schliemann he prepared a thesis on "Morphological studies of specialized shoulder joints of selected Bats with special reference to connective tissue structures."

Ready for the shoot

Later he joined along with the cameraman, photographer and filmmaker Ivo Norenberg and founded a company called Gulo Film Productions in 2004 and started to make wildlife films. Their ‘Wolverines - Hyenas of the North’ fetched them the Newcomer Award at the 2006 BBC Wild screen Film Festival in October and a year later they  were nominated for the" Marion Zunz Newcomer Award "( Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival).  Since then they have consistently short listed for awards in every possible wildlife film festival. Some of their other works are Russia-In the kingdom of Tigers, Bears and volcanoes and Serengeti. The Real Jungle Book Bear filmed on Sloth Bears of Daroji for BBC Natural world and was narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

After a crash landing from hot air balloon!

The creative narrative of Oliver and the brilliant camera work of Ivo, especially his time lapse camera work have made their company a winning horse world over. They have collaborated or made films for so many agencies such as the NDR, BBC, Wild Horizons, Free Spirit Films, and WWF. GULO films have been co-produced by WDR, ARTE, ORF, Terra Mater, BBC, National Geographic, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, SVT, S4C, VOX, and ZDF.

At the teachers' training workshop