Tag Archives: wildlife

Green films for the masses

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Films on environment and wildlife have come a long way in India in the last decade. Celluloid seems to be quite a medium of choice to take the message across. The film making format has also seen a change with many film makers changing over to new ways of storytelling.

However, documentary films screened at environment and wildlife film festivals, viewed by select audiences most of whom are already aware of  the issues, do not somehow seem to go beyond that mandate. Yes, the challenges to cross over to the other side, the mainstream, and be seen by the masses are many — no one goes to a movie theatre to be preached, they go there for entertainment.

Is there a middle path for environment & wildlife film makers? A still from 'Life of Pi'.{credit}Life of Pi movie/Flickr{/credit}

At the other end of the spectrum are big budget movies such as ‘Life of Pi’, which every middle class and upper class household in India worth its salt went to check out last weekend. The movie taught children a thing or two about animal behaviour and survival strategies (though many could scientifically challenge some of the films contents, specially the dream-like carnivorous island). Agreed that it takes one Ang Lee and truckloads of money to make such movies but the take home message here is the art of storytelling.

Is their a way of telling a story, beyond the documentary mode, that could perhaps make a movie much more ‘mainstream’? Why don’t more environment and wildlife film makers use innovative ways of telling stories? That, in no way, is intended to belittle the classic documentary format, which will forever continue to charm the more intellectually-oriented — the classes, as cinema lingo labels them. As for the masses, these festivals will perhaps need to reinvent themselves in form and tenor for people to sit up and take note.

The organisers of environment and wildlife film festivals seem to realise this and are struggling hard to reach their message across to more people every year.

One of the biggest film festivals in this genre in India — the multi-city traveling festival CMS Vatavaran that began in 2002 — boasted of 300 entries from 27 countries last year. It is still travelling this year with the theme ‘biodiversity conservation’ and is scheduled to screen films in the West Bengal capital Kolkata next week (December 3-8, 2012). Their theme was a good fit for Hyderabad’s COP-11 to the Convention on Biological Diversity, where they hosted the ‘International Biodiversity Film Festival’ with more than 50 Indian and international films on biodiversity issues.

The organisers say,”Ideals are abstract, but they are necessary, too. They can be transformed into a felt experience, but can get only as febrile as the passion that pushes it. The questions that provoked us a decade ago remain.”

Being screened in New Delhi next week is ‘Quotes from the Earth‘ (December 6-7, 2012), an environment film festival organised by advocacy group Toxics Link and India International Centre, Delhi. It will have about 25 films from across the world, some of which are currently on show at the more mainstream film event ‘International Film Festival of India (IFFI 2012) in Goa (November 20-30, 2012).

That brings us to films with overt or covert environment/wildlife themes being screened at the more talked about and attended IFFI, 2012. Of these films, just about a couple adopt the documentary-style story telling technique. While the Greek film ‘Boy eating Bird’s Food’ is the story of a boy and a canary bird with insights into the bird’s life, the Hebrew-Russian ‘Igor and the Crane’s Journey’ is the story of a father and son tracing the journey of migratory birds from Russia to Africa. English film ‘Salmon Fishing in the Yemen’ is a visionary sheikh’s passion for a peaceful pastime of salmon fishing and the ‘Last dogs of Winter’ tells the story of wild bears peacefully sharing a barren strip of coastal land with a large number of chained dogs during polar bear season in Manitoba, Canada. ‘Fogo’, featuring a small community in the Fogo island that is forced to leave as the tundras take over their habitats and ‘More than Honey’, a personal perspective of a beekeeper’s grandson in Switzerland, are a couple of others to mention.

Adopting the documentary style are Elemental (by Gayatri Roshan and Emmanuel Voughan-Lee) which narrates the journey of three people connected by their deep bond with nature and driven to confront some of the most pressing ecological challenges of our times, the Vidarbha farmer suicides story ‘Cotton for my Shroud’, and the self explanatory ‘Himachal’s Avian Paradise: Pong Dam Wildlife Sanctuary’ and ‘Mangroves: Guardian of the Coast’.

‘Tiger Dynasty’, a popular film in wildlife film circuit by director-producer-cinematographer S. Nallamuthu shows the life of a young tigress taken from her home in Ranthambore National Park and released in Sariska with the hope that she will raise a new dynasty there. The film maker has been filming the tigress ever since she was a cub and he reveals what challenges such displaced animals feel in their new environments. ‘Char: the No Man’s Land’, is an account of environment refugees from India and Bangladesh.

Girish Kasaravalli’s national award winning film from 2002 ‘Dweepa’ is also a refreshing entry — it deals with the issues of building dams and displacement of natives — with some master storytelling and camera.

I’m sure the issue has been debated in umpteen panel discussions, perhaps in these very film festivals, but it would be good to know what film makers in this genre think about marrying entertainment with hard-core information-packed story telling techniques?  Is there a middle path for environment and wildlife messages? Infotainment, without dumbing down the message? What are the cult movies in this genre, according to you?

Boston science museum’s gecko exhibit touches on debate over exotic pets

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     Last week, during the school vacation, the gecko exhibit at the Museum of Science Boston was mobbed. Kids nosed up to the terrariums to see the nimble lizards scale the glass. They learned that geckos do not have sticky feet. Instead, tiny toepad hairs allow geckos to climb walls through phenomenon called frictional adhesion.

     What exhibit visitors didn’t learn is that some people think it is a bad idea to keep geckos and other so-called “exotic” animals as pets. That’s not a notion shared by the exhibit’s sponsor — a local pet shop specializing in snakes and lizards.

    “Geckos – Tails to Toepads” runs until mid-May and features more than 60 lizards from all over the world including the Giant Leaf tails gecko, the Albino gecko the leopard gecko and of course, the animated Geico gecko.

    In addition to serving as chirping pests and museum exhibits, geckos are popular pets. Biologist, breeder and exhibit sponsor Stephen Ayer runs Winchester store called Jabberwock that “is dedicated to providing top quality healthy, captive bred reptiles and amphibians,” according to the store website.

    While conservation-minded science museums and lizard breeders like Ayer share an appreciation for wildlife, they can clash when it come to the capture and breeding of exotic animals as pets. The list of so-called exotic animals under scrutiny includes bears, panthers, as well as some iguanas, chameleons and pythons.

    Groups from the Humane Society to People for Ethical Treatment of Animals oppose the sale of wild animals as pets. And in January, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to banned the sale of the Burmese python and several other snakes, which have become a major problem in Florida. They are considered invasive in the Everglades, where according to the USFWS, the Burmese python has established breeding grounds and is feeding on endangered storks and rodents.

    While he doesn’t deal in Burmese pythons, Ayer was quoted in the Winchester Patch news story opposing the ban. He said snake breeders and businesses like his should not be blamed for the problems in Florida.

            Ayer argues that the ban is based on “fear and not in science…The idea that these snakes, particularly the Burmese python, could be invasive outside southern Florida is biologically impossible, he wrote in an email responding to questions from “Nature Boston.”  

            The snakes could not survive through the winter, he said, adding: “It would be irresponsible to suggest that they are a threat to the environment here, or in most of the US.”

    And, he argued that some breeders are protecting native species.  Development is threatening the natural habitat of the New Caledonian Giant Gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus) and breeders are helping preserve them, according to Ayer.  

            Breeders don’t want to see animals become invasive, he said. But Ayer sees the ban as “part of a bigger effort to criminalize keeping exotic pets.” 

          A spokesman for the Museum of Science declined to comment on Ayer’s positions.

       The exhibit was put together by Pennsylvania reptile zoo, and Aaron M. Bauer the director of the graduate biology program at Villanova University in Pennsylvania, was a scientific consultant.  He said that the interests of breeders and owners can conflict with conservation efforts.

            “Although most breeders and python owners are undoubtedly conscientious and would not release pythons in the Everglades, such laws at least provide some sort of restriction on the free and unregulated movement of possible invasives around the country,” he wrote in an email.

            He suggested regulators concluded that the “cost to the business of breeders is outweighed by the possible good of limiting invasive species… I don’t think that this is intended as an anti-herpetoculturalist measure.”