Press Coverage
The Telegraph, Thursday, December 07, 2006

Green care on silver screen - Three-day fest focus on environment
M. Ganguly
Ranchi, Dec. 6: Works of a new breed of documentary filmmakers of the state will be screened at CMS Vatavaran 2006, a three-day film fest that kicks off on Thursday at the Gossner Theological College.

While films made by Biju Toppo, Meghnath and Sriprakash have received acclaims and won awards, they were available to only select people. The festival provides an opportunity to others also to view the works.

Meghnath and Biju Toppo’s collaborative film Iron is Hot deals with the polluting effects of the sponge iron industry that uses coal in the state, unlike gas elsewhere. Shriprakash is also putting up his new documentary Whose Forests, which is set in Andhra Pradesh and explores participatory forest management.

While Meghnath and Biju’s film Development Flows from the Barrel of the Gun had won an international award, a silver conch at MIFF 2006, Shriprakash’s film Buddha weeps in Jadugoda, too, had won awards in Japan and the US and film buffs are waiting to see their new production.

Yet another filmmaker, Ashwini Kr Pankaj, will have two of his films screened at the festival — Raj Mahal and Ro Ro ki Abhisampat Pahadiya — on mindless mining and the havoc wrought by industrial waste. Sudhir Pal will also be screening a film on the high fluoride content in water in a Palamau village, causing deformities among the villagers.

The festival will also screen two documentaries on elephants. Diksha Prasad, a forest officer, used a handycam to shoot Operation Gajaraj to show how an elephant, that had strayed into city limits, was driven back to Horhap forest. Poonam Kerketta focuses on the plight of villagers killed by elephants when they are driven back.

Brush with wildlife posers
Ranchi, Dec. 6: As many as 34 short films, their duration varying from one minute to an hour, will be screened at the three-day film festival, CMS Vatavaran-2006, that opens here on Thursday.

The biennial festival on environment and wildlife is being held at both Hyderabad and Ranchi simultaneously between December 7 and 9.

The festival earlier covered seven different cities, including Bangalore, Chennai and Chandigarh.

It is being organised by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), New Delhi, and is being supported by the Union forest and environment ministry, the Jharkhand forest department and local NGO Manthan Yuva Sangsthan.

Another highlight of the festival is a seminar on “Mining and its effect on tribal livelihood”.

Green & wild danger on film
M. Ganguly
Ranchi, Dec. 6: As many as 34 short films, their duration varying from one minute to an hour, will be screened at the three-day film festival, CMS Vatavaran-2006, that opens here on Thursday.

The biennial festival on environment and wildlife is being held at both Hyderabad and Ranchi simultaneously between December 7 and 9. The festival earlier covered seven different cities, including Bangalore, Chennai and Chandigarh.

It is being organised by the Centre for Media Studies (CMS), New Delhi, and is being supported by the Union forest and environment ministry, the Jharkhand forest department and local NGO, Manthan Yuva Sangsthan.

Another highlight of the festival is a seminar on “Mining and its effect on tribal livelihood”.

Themes of the films cover a wide range of environmental and wildlife topics — from birds seen through a window to compressed natural gas (CNG) to hazards of electronic waste threatening health.

Filmmakers are also from across the country and of different age groups. Rudransh Mathur made Birds Through my Window when he was a student of Class VIII.

Works of several acclaimed filmmakers will be screened here. The work of Syed Fayaz, who has made films for Unicef, Discovery Channel and Channel 4 (UK), will be seen on the second day when “A Brush with Death” is screened.

In the film he has shown how illegal procurement and sale of the common mongoose continues to make the paint brush industry thrive.

Meghnath and Biju Toppo’s collaborative film Iron is Hot deals with the polluting effects of the sponge iron industry that uses coal in the state, unlike gas elsewhere.

A Second Hand Life is an “investigative film that brings to light the grim, murkier side of information technology”. Cute Bunny, an animated film by Dhimant Vyas, won the gold award for children’s short film at the Kalamazoo Animation Film Festival and award for best animated film for children in the Zews Animated Film Festival in Latvia in 2003.

Some other famous shorts, including Kanha — Protecting a Paradise by Shekar Dattatri will also be shown. Films by some of Jharkhand’s filmmakers will also be screened.