These two film festivals in the city this weekend create a dialogue about urban, environmental and marine issues threatening our world.
Urban Lens Film Festival 2018
The Indian Institute for Human Settlements in collaboration with Goethe-Institut hosts the fifth edition of the Urban Lens Film Festival. “The aim of the festival is to be able to create a conversation about the social and urban issues not just amongst directors and researchers, but also among the larger public. We will showcase movies, and have talks by speakers which you can never get to experience otherwise,” says organiser Subasri Krishnan.
The festival showcases short fiction, non-fiction and animated movies. The topics range from following a rag picker in the city (Good Guy, Bad Guy) to a trans man reclaiming public spaces(Please Mind The Gap). Some other titles from this year are Rangbhoomi, Pushkar Puran, Portrait of a City, Bismaar Ghar and Life in Gray.
The event also has talks, lectures and discussions featuring personalities such Malyalam scholar and critic Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, movie editor Jabeen Merchant, National Award winning director Kamal Swaroop and feminist scholar Uma Chakravarti.
Entry free. 20-23 September, 9.30 am. At IIHS, Sadashivanagar
Moving Waters Film Festival
The third edition of the Moving Waters Film Festival explores the aquatic universe, the life it supports and everything that affects it. Some of the movies at the festival are Kananam: The Spirit of Silent Valley, the story of the movement to protect the Kunthi River, Racing Extinction, that explores mass extinction and endangered species, Blue Heart, about the last wild rivers in the Balkans and more.
The festival also has speakers such as dolphin biologist Coralie D’Lima, Tiasa Adhya, co-founder of The Fishing Cat Project and Samad Kottur founder of the Tungabhadra Otter Conservation Reserve. There will also be workshops by photographer Rithesh Nanda and storytteller Nisha Abdulla.
Nisarg Prakash, part of the organising team, says that Bengaluru is not near a river or the ocean so the public does not have much interaction with water bodies, “In spite of that we have a huge footprint on what happens in these water bodies. This is the reason we are hosting the festival in the city,” he explains.
Entry free. Saturday and Sunday, 10 am. At Goethe-Institut, Indira Nagar
anagha @newindianexpress.com @anaghzzz