The fourth and final edition of the virtual Rising Gardens Film Festival looks at the theme of ‘Women and Solidarities’. Previous editions have examined the relationship of women with nature, agriculture and food.
Ten films will be streamed for free on the website www.doculive.in until April 19. The festival has been organised by Sangat and the Kriti Film Club to mark the One Billion Rising’s South Asia Campaign. The selection has been curated by editor and filmmaker Reena Mohan.
The films that will be streamed in the concluding edition include Anjali Khosla’s Aikya, which reveals the role played by the women of Pachgaon in Haryana in sustaining their forests. Anay Kachi, by Cristobal Ruiz, Thomas Silcock and Toto Thots, highlights the female salt workers of the Peruvian Andes.
In Sajeed Naduthody’s Bamboo Ballads, a school student uses music to promote bamboo plantation. Priya Thuvassery’s Coral Woman profiles a diver who raises awareness about climate change and the threats to the marine ecosystem.
Ali Kazimi’s Narmada: A Valley Rises is a chronicle of the Narmada Bachao Andolan movement against the Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat. Sahara Sharma’s Raasaleela, from Nepal, follows a conservationist’s mission to save a rhino. In Saving Mr Green, by Shivani Monga and Ankush Gupta, a young girl sets out to protect a tree.
Munmun Dhalaria’s The Jujurana’s Kingdom details efforts to save an endangered pheasant species. Thengapalli, by Vandana Menon, Vivek Sangwan, Debashish Nandi, tracks the campaign by a group of women to save their forests from a timber mafia. Gulnar Tabassum’s Two Steps Forward follows a protest movement in Punjab in Pakistan against the denial of inheritance rights to agricultural land.