Last year, on the World Environment Day on June 5, the British government had selected seven young filmmakers under the UK Environment Film Fellowships to make documentaries on endangered species in India.
   Now, the seven are ready with their films, which will be showcased at a special function at the British Council in New Delhi on the World Environment Day on Tuesday.
   This would bring under focus seven of the most-threatened species in India — sloth bears, butterflies, elephants, leopards, corals, tigers and turtles.
Cruel practice
   Ashima Narain’s “The Last Dance”, one of the seven films, depicts the cruel practice of making bears dance, despite the fact that under the law, the Indian sloth bear is entitled to the same protection as the tiger.
   Through an undercover operation and showing the surrender of a dancing bear to its so-called master, the film seeks to show how this crime can be brought to an end.
   Similarly, Jay Mazoomdaar’s “The Hunted” focuses on the tiger which is fighting a grim battle for survival.
   The film tries to look beyond the economics of global demand and supply and seeks hope for most-effectively curbing the tiger trade by offering the tribal hunters a new way of life.
Untold  story
   On the other hand, Kalpana Subramanian’s “Turtles in a Soup” tells the untold story of one of the largest wildlife crimes in India — the illegal trade of freshwater turtles — while P Balan and Radha R’s “The Silenced Witness” analyses why despite having about 60 per cent of the world population of Asiatic and despite the animal being revered for centuries, the magnificent mammal is fighting for survival.
   The threat to coral reefs from souvenir collectors, aquariums, coral constructions, specimen collectors, etc., is the theme of the motivational film “Diminishing Resources” by Himanshu Malhotra.
   At the same time, Sonia V Kapoor focuses on the very less-known crimes against butterflies in her “Once there was a purple butterfly”.
   This documentary shows how varieties of these pollinators are quietly becoming extinct and how their disappearance will affect all life forms on earth, including man.
   Gurmeet Sapal is another young filmmaker whose “Leopards in the Lurch” brings out how apart from poachers, even common village folks have become larger perpetrators of crimes against leopards.