‘Turtle Walker’: Zoya Akhtar-backed documentary pays tribute to Satish Bhaskar’s life and legacy

Taira Malaney will never forget the female olive ridley sea turtle she encountered one evening while shooting her film, Turtle Walker, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. “She came up and just kept digging and digging and digging. I think she must have done so for nine hours,” remembers the Goa-based writer, director, and producer. Finally, at dawn, she started laying her eggs, recalls Taira, who worked closely with the forest department to access and find these turtle nesting sites. “It was a beautiful sunrise, and we sat around these forest rangers, people who really work to protect these animals every day. It was really special to witness this.”

From footage of this very turtle laying her eggs to close-ups of bizarrely beautiful sea creatures in their natural habitat and stunning shots of surf-swept shores towards which baby turtles skitter, Turtle Walker is full of visually stunning imagery, drawing its viewers deep into the story of these enigmatic primaeval reptiles. “It was really important to reach audiences who have not had exposure to the beauty of marine life that we have in our country,” says Taira, the founder of Emaho Films.

She firmly believes the first step towards conserving India’s remarkably diverse marine wildlife is to help people experience the sense of awe of seeing and learning about them. “I think that the first step towards wanting to protect something is to feel connected to it,” she says of the film, which has been co-produced by Tiger Baby Films, Emaho Films, and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios.

Taira also believes that the best way to do this is by telling human stories, even for a film about wildlife, “because we connect with each other’s emotions, very directly.” In Turtle Walker, which will premiere on Animal Planet this week, the late Satish Bhaskar, ‘Mr Sea Turtle’, becomes the vehicle through which this happens. “I thought that through Satish’s story, people can connect with the animal and the ecosystems they call home,” she says.

Explaining why the film, part of Animal Planet’s India: Epic Wild Stories anthology, is so special, Sai Abishek, Head of Factual Entertainment, Lifestyle & Kids, South Asia, Skydance, whose portfolio includes Animal Planet, says, “Within this anthology, Turtle Walker stood out for the way it brings together an extraordinary personal journey and a larger story about marine conservation.” He also points out that Satish Bhaskar’s decades of work with sea turtles and his deep connection to India’s coastlines and islands offer a compelling perspective on the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and protecting the natural world.

“His indomitable spirit saved the enigmatic creatures from extinction and reminds us how precious our planet is,” says Zoya Akhtar, the co-founder of Tiger Baby Films, about Satish Bhaskar, who, she adds, walked nearly every inch of India’s coastline to discover the nesting beaches of sea turtles so that they could be protected.

Genesis

Taira first heard of turtle conservationist Satish Bhaskar when, after graduating with a BA in Psychology from Occidental College in 2013, she moved to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to work with a marine conservation organisation. “When you are there, you hear stories about people like Romulus ‘Rom’ Whitaker and Satish Bhaskar, all part of the Andaman and Nicobar environment team (ANET), researchers who had studied sea turtles and other wildlife there,” she says. “Those stories stuck with me.”

Then, when she returned to mainland India and began looking for stories for a film about people and their connection to the natural world, she came across an article about Satish, written by Rom. “I have always been interested in the psychology behind humans and nature, what draws people to protect these wild spaces,” says Taira, who found herself captivated by the stories about Satish, “some of which were too good to be true.”

She decided that she wanted to find this man, who had played such a crucial role in turtle conservation in India, undertaking a solitary, epic journey on foot to document sea turtle nesting sites along India’s coastline and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. ”When Satish started, there was no blueprint for where these turtles nest. That is what set him on this journey, literally walking across India’s entire coastline,” says Taira, who soon discovered that Satish lived just an hour away from her own home in Goa.

And so she met the introverted Satish, who opened up to her about his passion for turtles. “We spent a lot of years just doing research interviews, spending time together, just learning his stories and sharing meals,” says Taira, who believes that the process of building trust with a participant is a crucial part of what it means to be a documentary filmmaker and storyteller. “I think that is why it takes so long. It has been a nearly nine-year-long journey.”

Film facts

Turtle Walker uses cinematic recreations, archival photographs, stunning wildlife cinematography and interviews with Satish and his wife, Brenda, to tell his story. “The recreations were a tool we decided to employ once we realised that so much of the film had taken place in the past, and we did not have access to archival footage,” she says.

Instead, her close friend, artist Rohan Joglekar, a slight man who bears more than a passing resemblance to Satish, played his younger self, walking through tawny sand and azure ocean, intent on his mission. “The entire story is scripted around one long interview, which forms the backbone of the film, and then we used his narration to storyboard how we would shoot these recreations,” says Taira, adding that Satish played a vital part in this process, guiding Rohan through these sequences. “For us, it was a necessary choice because there is no way you can transport people to these remote places without taking them there,” she says.

The film, which went on to win accolades worldwide, including the Grand Teton Award at the Jackson Wild Media Awards, premiered at Doc NYC 2024 in New York in November that year. By the time it did, however, both Satish and Brenda had sadly passed away in 2022 and 2023 respectively, without ever seeing the final version of the film. “He did see a longer version of the film, but not in its fully-finished form. I am very grateful, however, that he could see this longer version and give us his input and how he felt about it,” she says, recalling how positively Satish’s children responded to it. “They cried a lot when they watched it; it was a very emotional experience for them.”

In Taira’s view, given that the film highlights not just the importance of these nesting sites, but also the resilience of these animals, who bounced back after the 2004 tsunami, “having a story like that is very important in today’s day and age. Despite the challenges we are facing with the environment, it is quite inspiring to see what a person can do to make an impact.” She hopes that when people watch the film, they will feel the same pride she did for India’s immense marine biodiversity. “I also hope that it inspires people to take up challenges that they are not sure that they can handle, because we can see with Satish’s story that it is possible to change the future for an entire species.”

Turtle Walker is releasing on October 19, 9 pm on Animal Planet.