Pooja Rajkumar Rathod | Wildlife Cinematographer

Pooja Rajkumar Rathod | Wildlife Cinematographer

Pooja Rathod is a marine biologist-turned-wildlife cinematographer, who’s captured incredible imagery, from mountaintops to coral reefs, for natural history documentaries featured on Disney+, National Geographic, BBC, Animal Planet and Discovery channels.

Her credits include episodes of Into the Wild: India (2018-2019), Wild Edens: South Asia (2019), as well as the theatrically released Wild Karnataka (2020), the latter narrated by Sir David Attenborough. In 2023, she produced and directed the short film Belonging, which was selected for the National Geographic Short Film Showcase, and was also director of photography on the Asia episode of the Emmy-nominated and Critics Choice award-winning documentary Secrets of the Elephants. Most recently, she has been presenting for Disneynature’s Tigers on the Rise, due to air in 2024.

In their own words...

 “It is an absolute privilege to be selected for BAFTA Breakthrough. Coming from the natural history world and not mainstream cinema,... I wasn’t expecting it and I’m very excited to make the most of all the opportunities BAFTA has to offer... I’m hoping to network with industry professionals to explore and develop ideas of people and wildlife stories in mainstream cinema. There is a huge disconnect between people and nature and films have the power to bridge that gap, inspire, change minds and make people care for nature, which I believe is the need of the hour.”

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