Eco Reels - Climate Charche Edition to be held in Bengaluru

Climate change adds a whole new layer of challenges to an already dysfunctional society, says Manasi Pingle, Coordinator of Bengaluru Sustainability Forum, a city-based initiative focusing on sustainability. “There are numerous long-standing issues arising from inequity and injustice,” says Pingle, who believes that it is, therefore, essential to foreground the impact of climate on already-vulnerable communities and “develop a people’s vocabulary to understand and articulate what is happening…maybe talk about it from different angles.” An upcoming film festival, Eco Reels - Climate Charche Edition, which is being organised by BSF in collaboration with the Kriti Film Club for the first time in the city, seeks to do precisely this, aiming to spotlight pressing issues of climate crisis, adaptation and mitigation, environmental challenges and people’s struggles in this context, scientific and policy debates, across urban and rural landscapes, as the event’s release states. According to Pingle, over the past year, BSF has engaged in different events, including lectures, group discussions, and capacity-building workshops under the Climate Charche series, “to look at the interconnections between climate and various city systems.” She adds that they also wanted to do a film festival because it allowed them to take these critical conversations to a larger audience. We always discuss the film and engage the audience with attending filmmakers, invited experts or social practitioners.” Four venues Eco Reels - Climate Charche Edition will be held over four days at four venues in the city: Mount Carmel College, JAIN, Gandhi Bhavan and CHRIST (Deemed-to-be-University. Also, “even though it’s happening in academic spaces on three of the four days, it’s open to the public, and different films are playing on different days.” Some of the films which will be screened include Samayada Harivu, set on the banks of the historic Begur Lake; Bhed Chal, about the pastoralist kurbā community; The Weight of Water, which explores how communities in Nepal are being impacted by flooding and drought and Gomala: Commons under Threat, focusing on the government-reserved land in Karnataka used to graze livestock.