: CMS Vatavaran, India's only competitive environment and wildlife film festival, will be held this year from 12 to 16 September 2007 at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. For the 2007 edition, 275 films from 18 Indian states and 18 countries were in the fray, competing in a total of 12 Indian and six International categories. This year's festival has seen introduction of Competitive International Category as well as new Indian Categories like: Livelihood, Festival Theme: Climate Change, and Children's film. The 25 awards worth a grand total of Rs.1,250,000 will be presented to filmmakers on 16 September.
In view of the far-reaching consequences of climate change in India, the festival, held by the Centre for Media Studies, has declared the theme for this year's festival as 'Climate Change' and will hold a one-day "International Summit on Climate Change" on 13 September. The summit will particularly focus on climate change concerns in India in the context of its impacts on the water, agriculture, human health and biodiversity sectors as also implications for energy, social and economic structures including the infrastructural, natural resources and financial challenges besides the issues of climate change adaptation and disaster preparedness. The deliberations of the summit would help in developing a strategy paper on India's approach to meet the challenges due to climate change.
A still from Wasted, one of the entries at this year's festival.
Pictures: Centre for Media Studies
Another major parallel event during the festival is a seminar on the state of Indian rivers on 14 September. The seminar would analyse the impact of the various measures taken to clean important Indian rivers such as Ganga and the Yamuna, get the viewpoints of stakeholders, learn about the best practices and experiences of others and call for implementing the relevant actions.
Apart from the summit and the seminar, the film festival this year offers wide array of awards, programmes and participation. The main attractions of the festival are showcasing approximately 100 of the best Indian and international films, panorama, retrospectives, panel discussions on conservation and livelihood, films for campaigns and advocacy, technical workshops on wildlife filmmaking, storytelling, nature photography, open forums, tête-à-tête with filmmakers; film bazaar, exhibition of photography, stamps and cartoons.
The festival recognises films in all genres, which inform, educate, foster knowledge, understanding and action on environment, wildlife issues or other socially relevant environment themes. All the entries received were subjected to a two-tier rigorous and transparent selection process. A 25-member nomination jury first zeroed in on the potential winners. A five-member final jury, headed by Dada Sahib Phalke Award winner Shyam Benegal, selected the coveted CMS Vatavaran award winners from among the nominated films. "The quality of films was of a very high standard and it was not always easy to pick the winners. With the rare exception of a couple of films, practically all films can find pride of place in the world of environmental cinema," said Benegal.
"It was wonderful to see such dedication and commitment. It only goes to bolster my belief that no worthwhile development is possible without paying long term and continuing attention to the well being of all living beings and to the environment in which we live," he added.
Some of the films
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Tiger -The Death Chronicles (English, 63 min, 2007) received a nomination in the Wildlife Conservation category. The film travels to tiger hotspots like Sariska, Panna, Buxa, tiger reserves which have been highly affected, to unravel the nuts and bolts of the crisis.
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Bhangon (Bengali with English subtitles, 60 min, 2005) received a nomination in the 'Water for All' category. The film highlights the displacement of people due to river erosion in Bengal and unscrupulous river.
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Vimlendu Jha's Wasted (English, 15 min 47 Sec, 2007) is one one of the nominees in Environment Conservation category. The film traces the journey of waste from its source - i.e. households - to its final destination in landfills and beyond.
New awards
Introduced for the first time this year, the festival will honour the green scribes through the FEJI-CMS Academy Young Environment Journalist Award. The Forum for Environmental Journalists of India (FEJI) and CMS Academy Award is for excellence in environmental journalism (print/broadcast) and will be given to an individual who has done exemplary investigative and inspired reporting. This will be countrywide recognition of two journalists under 35 years who have made a significant contribution in either the print or electronic media to an understanding of the nation's environmental problems.
A still from Tiger - The Death Chronicles
Pictures: Centre for Media Studies.
The TV News Stories Award is yet another new initiative. This award will be presented for the informative and investigative news shown as a news segment on its own or as a part of news special, news magazine, or part of regularly scheduled news broadcast by a TV channel. The news story should energise public consciousness, awareness and understanding about any regional, national or international environmental issue.
This year, awards will be also given for technical excellence in Best Editing, Story Telling and Cinematography.
