Film festival on environment opens

PUNE: The third CMS Vatavaran film festival , which was inaugurated on Friday, will showcase a plethora of nature-based films by makers of assorted hues, upto Sunday, December 7. The festival is on at the Balgandharva Rangmandir. This year, the theme is "climate change."
Addressing the audience which consisted mainly of school children, Mayor Rajlakshmi Bhosale observed that the organisers were performing an important service by bringing forth pressing issues on films."Climate change and global warming are two of the biggest challenges before us all. And unless citizens make a concerted effort to bring about changes in their lifestyles, there's little we can do about it. I'm particularly hopeful that since this is basically an audience of youngsters, these films will make an impact on their minds, and motivate them to preserve the environment better."
Chief guest for the occasion, B G Deshmukh , former Union cabinet secretary, voiced similar concerns, and asked the organisers to make the festival an annual feature in the city.
Also present at the inauguration was municipal commissioner Pravinsinh Pardeshi, educationist E Bharucha, P A Vasanti, director, Centre for Media Studies (CMS), and Claes Leijon, counsellor for development cooperation, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).
Pardeshi told the audience that they were jointly working with SIDA on a project centred around public transport and non-motorised transport.
Elaborating further, Leijon said, "The major feature of the cooperation is not so much to provide technical support as it is to focus on the capacity-building of the resources and plans that the PMC already has."
Notably so, five city-based filmmakers will showcase their work in the festival - Vilas Kane, his daughter 12-year-old Kartiki Kane, Harold Raichur, Suparna Gangal and Virendra Valsangkar . The other features of the three-day festival include workshops on green filmmaking, symposia on conservation and livelihood security and a painting competition.