A thought for environment

A concern for the nature often finds form in a rally, campaign or seminar. Centre for Media Studies (CMS), however, embarked on the journey of raising awareness about env­­­i­r­o­­­­nment and wildlife with a documentary film festival – Vatavaran.

The 7th edition of the festival was recently organised in the Capital at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. People from all walks of life indulged themselves in watching various documentaries segregated under the two sections – India and
International.

More than 100 documentaries including 86 nominated films and 20 international films (screened at various film festivals) were presented for the film lovers in the city over four days.

 Simultaneously, there we­re thematic discussions for the visitors which endeavo­ured to popularise the environmental issues among general public. Around 150 sp­e­­akers engaged in discussions over biodiversity conservation, tourism in tiger reserves, animal-human conflict and reportage of these conflicts in media, during 70 sessions that spanned over five days of the festival.

Amidst these, these were also few book launches, the most prominent among these was of First Food: A Taste of India’s Biodiversity by environmentalist Sunita Narain.
As elders remained busy in attending the seminars, the young ones engaged in workshops by filmmakers like Rita Banerji and also learned how to create puppets and things out of waste.

Quite different from the regular, the film festival also included an exhibition of
photograph by Pondicherry-based Nicolas Chorier. An internationally acclaimed aerial photographer, Nicolas fixes his DSLR camera on a kite and then manoeuvres
it with the help of a device to click shots of scenic landscape from unusual
angles.

The evening on the fourth day of the festival was quite glamorous with the screening of the film Jal by  director Girish Malik amidst the presence of the star cast Purab Kohli and Tannishtha Chatterjee. This was followed by an award’s night and the
final day which was dominated by seminars.

 Besides the food for thought, there was also real food for foodies but in an organic avatar, to match the theme of the festival. From watermelon salad to gol gappas there was enough to keep one busy gobbling food and shopping for various artifacts and apparels.