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Celluloid turns green
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The fourth CMS Vatavaran promises the best
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This is a film fest without glitzy stars and devoid of glamour. It is a festival that portrays, through its films, the stark reality: what blights and jeopardizes our home, Planet Earth, and threatens its inhabitants.
CMS Vatavaran 2007 is an international environment and wildlife film festival, a one of its kind in the country that will screen films produced by both Indian and foreign filmmakers. Organised by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS) this is the fourth competitive festival to be hosted at New Delhi’s India Habitat Centre, starting Wednesday.
Says CMS’ Alka Tomar, Festival Director, “Vatavaran seeks to catalyse a mindset change in the general public and policy makers vis-À-vis the environment. It has, over the past five years since its inception, grown in stature and in terms of partner organisations and audiences.”
The competitive festival will screen 72 films (48 Indian and 24 foreign) in 18 categories nominated out of a total of 275 entries that were received by CMS. A two-tier process, the 25 CMS Vatavaran award winners, 17 in Indian categories, the Prithvi Ratna 2007 awardee and seven in foreign categories will be announced on September 16, the final day of the festival.
A hot topic
The theme “Climate Change” is in keeping with this year’s World Environment Day slogan, “ Melting Ice – a Hot Topic?” Nominated in this category are films on the receding glaciers in Ladakh (Syed Fayaz), Orissa’s rising sea level (Nila Madhab Panda) and desertification in Asia (Klaus Feichtenberger), besides others.
Wildlife conservation, livelihood, nature, public service announcements, animation films, children’s films, environmental conservation and animal behaviour are some of the nomination categories.
The nominated films, all of which are to be screened during the festival, are an eclectic mix. Veteran Naresh Bedi’s Cherub of the Mist on the Red Panda , Sonya V. Kapoor’s Once There Was A Purple Butterfly
, acclaimed filmmaker Shekar Dattatri’s film on the unique Point Calimere sanctuary and Asim Waqif’s portrayal of the Bakarwal shepherds are just a few in the wide array of Indian nominations.
The foreign nominations include, among others, Belinda Beggam’s film on the king cobra and Patrick Rouxel’s The Cathedral Forest.
“The festival,” says Alka, “Proves to be a forum for documentary filmmakers — long-timers , experts, newcomers — to showcase their work.”
The films will also travel across India and to some cities abroad.
Says leading environmentalist and filmmaker Mike Pandey, a three-time Green Oscar winner, “Vatavaran’s travelling festival can help take environmental issues to the village level, to sensitise local communities.” A retrospective of Pandey’s films is also to be screened at IHC.
Besides film screenings, an international summit on climate change, and various technical workshops have been lined up.
Join the green brigade. It’s worth enlisting in it.
N. KALYANI
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