As Bengaluru and Pune — the country’s IT hubs — lurch from one garbage crisis to another, a unique film festival hopes to confront audiences with the entrenched civilian apathy and offer much food for thought in the process.
The ninth edition of the Kirloskar Vasundhara International Film Festival (VKIFF) — India’s only such film event dedicated to critically analysing environmental issues — will commence here on January 16 with a topical theme ‘Zero Waste: Begins with Us.’
As many as 140 films from 25 countries, including Brazil, the United Kingdom, Canada, China and Kenya, are to be screened at three venues in the city over a week. Allied activities such as waste disposal drives and seminars, are to be held in tandem with the screenings.
The opening film The Carbon Rush (2012), directed by Canadian Amy Miller, proffers a visceral look at the debilitating impact of carbon trading on indigenous peoples across four continents while graphically dissecting the Kyoto protocol.
Particularly germane to garbage woes plaguing Pune and Bengaluru are documentary shorts like Reduce, Reuse, Recycle; Masters of Waste; and No Man’s Land which depict the leavings of the Indian society and its impact on those who struggle to clear them.
