Press Release
New Delhi

A Time to PAUSE, THINK and ACT

2nd Guwahati CMS VATAVARAN 2006 - Environment and Wildlife Traveling Film Festival, slated for 24th – 26th November 2006 at Guwahati Tea Auction Centre, Dispur will be inaugurated by Sri Rockybul Hussain, Minister for Environment & Forests, Tourism, Printing & Stationary and Information & Public Relations of Assam.

CMS and Aaranyak is jointly organising this Environment and Wildlife Film Festival. It is partly supported by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India.

Biennially travelling and competitive, 2nd Guwahati CMS VATAVARAN 2006 - Environment and Wildlife Traveling Film Festival offers a bouquet of 16 films. Many of which have won the coveted CMS VATAVARAN awards. This festival presents an opportunity to view an array of films on topical, Indian environment and wildlife issues.

Workshops on “What makes a good environment film?” by eminent Delhi based filmmaker Krishnendu Bose and “Green Media and Green Films in the Northeast India: Challenges and Opportunities” chaired by Darryl D’Monte, Chairperson, Forum of Environmental Journalists of India and International Federation of Environmental Journalists will be held as a part of parallel event along with another exclusive first of its kind workshop with the Northeast filmmakers.

Besides screening of the Best of Indian Films on environment and wildlife, special attraction of the festival would be Films from Northeast on environment and wildlife such as Mauleenath Senapati’s Where the Tallest Grass Grows, Moji Riba’s When the Mist is Lifted, Jyoti Prasad Das’s The Green Warriors – Apatanis, Mrinal Talukdar’s In Search of a Job, A Shyam Sharma’s Loktak: The Dying Lake of Manipur and Gautam Saikia’s Jaws of Death.

According to P N Vasanti, Director CMS, “CMS VATAVARAN is a movement to create awareness on the environmental problems of the region and Guwahati CMS VATAVARAN 2006 is expected to bring to fore the topical regional environmental concerns on the national agenda. It will generate greater momentum on environmental issues and lead to action for change.”

As a humble gesture to acknowledge their relentless efforts to highlight the local topical environment issues, the festival will felicitate regional environment and wildlife filmmakers like Mr. Mauleenath Senapati , Mr. Jyoti Prasad Das, Mr. Gautam Saikia, and Mr. Sanjit Kumar Roy, Filmmaker, Lecturer, Regional Institute of Journalism and Mass Communication.

Some of the films to be screened at the festival are Krishnendu Bose’s Elephant God or Destroyer, on man- animal conflict, Sanjay Barnela and Vasant Saberwal’s River Taming Mantras on the pros and cons of flood management and relief, Ajay & Vijay Bedi’s The Policing Langur on the monkey menace, Nutan Manmohan’s A Second Hand Life, on e-waste business, Shekar Dattatri’s Point Calimere: Little Kingdom by the Coast, on Point Calimere’s remarkable ecosystem and its problems,CMS Fellowship film by Prayas, Abhay and Manjushree titled ‘Leaving No Trace…Cyclist in the City’. These and many other films will be available for the general public at the Film Bazaar.

The festival will reach out to approximately 6000 people including filmmakers, civil society organisations, government organizations, environmentalists, researchers, conservationists, policy makers, activists, public and private sector organisations and students of all ages and streams.

For more information contact:
Rekha: 9899979157; Priya: 9899979165;

CMS VATAVARAN Film Festival Directorate, New Delhi
P: 91-11- 2499 2597, 2652 2244, 2652 2255;
E: info@cmsvatavaran.org; vatavaran@cmsindia.org
www.cmsvatavaran.org