New Delhi, 30 November 2019: CMS with the association of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and Department of Science and Technology, Government of India has organized 4 days Himalayan Summit on Climate change at Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi. Where representatives of Central, state government (especially from 12 states/UT in the Indian Himalayan Region), Civil Society, bilateral and multilateral agencies as well as academic and research institution have participated. All the participant and stake-holders discussed about the major impact on Indian Himalayan Region due to climate change. During the four days summit the experts working on climate change have shared their experiences and suggestions to the policy makers. The main attraction of the summit was four days long film festival to spread awareness about the pollution. In the film festival 90 films were nominated for screening.
The 10th CMS Vatavaran Film festival and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change & MoEF&CC Short Film Competition and Festival on Environment began with the inauguration of Shri Suresh Prabhu, Member of Parliament and Chair of the 2019 Awards Jury of CMS VATAVARAN. Amongst other dignitaries presented at the inauguration were Shri RaviAggrawal, Additional Secretary, MoEF&CC; Ms. Tamara Mona, Deputy Head, Embassy of Switzerland in India; Dr. N. Bhaskara Rao, Chairman, CMS, and other senior officials from the Ministry.
During the inauguration Shri Suresh Prabhu said “Humans are responsible for the climate change in the most significant way and therefore changing the mind set of people is the most important because that’s the software of human beings”.
Shri Ravi Aggrawal Additional secretary MoEF&CC Complimented all the participants and filmmakers for dedicating their work towards creating awareness on the environment. He believes that films are the most powerful tool of communication and it have the potential to create a lasting impact on the vast cross-section of people across various geographical locations.
Dr. PN Vasanti, DG, Centre for Media Studies has welcomed the dignitaries and wished for the best to the organizer for 4 days long climate summit. Dr. Vasanti specializes in strategy development, designing, researching and evaluating development communication initiatives. She has been part of number of government and non-government bodies and credit numerous policy inputs, designing and organizing multi stakeholder events and research based publication.
CMS Vatavaran Film festival and Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) have arranged the Short Film Competition. 90 films were nominated for screening before the Jury comprising Shri Ramesh Sippy, Shri Rahul Rawail, Ms. Manju Borah and Ms. Agnimitra Paul, for selection of the final awardees for this competition.
Under the category of MOEFCC 2019 Short Film Festival and Festival on Pollution the following films had been screened: The reality check-Air Pollution, One step for a pollution, can India be Pollution Free?, Dhur, Zara Dheere, Pranvayu, I Am Sorry, Etc.
The Film I Am Sorry is about the issue of cleanliness. In an Indian household, the cleaning up of the house is the first step towards the celebration of an approaching festival. It symbolizes purity of mind and clarity of thoughts before one goes to pray and celebrate an event of importance.
17 films had been screened under the Nominated films of National and International film category, some of them are Save Earth,Swachht, Clean your Mentality, Great White, The Last Eagle, Chidra. Students from various schools came to witness the films on pollution and environment.
Searching for Solution-Blue Bulls is a film tells about Blue Bulls in Madhya Pradesh. About 35 thousand Blue Bulls roaming in the fields are a nuisance for the farmers. To deal with this problem, the forest department wanted to catch the “Blue Bulls” from fields and help the farmers. They involved the local villagers in the project, About 25 horse riders along with 100 villagers were trained to round off the “Blue Bulls”. During this project, for the first time helicopter flying at low altitude was used to round-up the “Blue Bulls” like it is done in South Africa. The fast running “Blue Bulls” were successfully captured safely. All the captured animals were later released in the Gandhi Sagar Sanctuary. The Film director Mr. Anil Yadav said “it was a risky task to shoot the animals as they were harmful, we have set the cameras in different directions to shoot the animals in this film. And he said CMS VATAVARAN is huge platform to showcase our talent”.
On the Brink is an unprecedented portrait of India’s natural world, exploring species and habitats rarely seen on Indian television, there are less than 150 Great Indian Bustards left in the world. And from the look of it, this species could go extinct within our lifetime. The Director Akansha Sood Singh said “it is not easy to make a wildlife film in the world, the series of On the Brink, we tied up with researchers and people on the ground who was studying or following these animal”.
The students of Chinh Media Club has also presented a street play Title “Pleaseeee…”This play is based on Air pollution, Water Pollution, and spreading awareness on how to save trees. We were born to help the world not to destroy it we must stop destroying the environment.
Range of discussions, seminars, workshops, interactions are also being organized to churn innovative ideas, paving a path for new talents and creative minds in the stream of film making with a sense of responsibility towards the Environment.
CMS Vatavaran
CMS VATAVARAN is India’s premier environment and wildlife film festival and forum – it is aimed towards enhancing understanding, appreciation and shift in attitudes towards the natural world and to increase space for environmental issues in mass media and evolve a nationwide environment outreach framework. The festival reaches out to people from all walks of life including filmmakers, civil society groups, government organizations, environmentalists, researchers, conservationists, policy makers, activists, public and private sector organizations and students of all ages and is recognized as a calendar event amongst filmmakers, environment, wildlife and conservation sector. Its unique twin track approach of organizing competitive and traveling film festivals and environment forum has positioned it as one of the most prestigious film festivals across the globe. Since its inception in 2002, none competitive and 52 travelling festivals in 41 cities of 25 Indian states have been organized.
