Suits & Savages: Why The World Bank Won't Save The World - A US Documentary: Events in Hyderabad

And we guess the title of this one explains it all.

The Documentary Circle of the Hyderabad Film Club, in association with Magic Lantern Foundation, Delhi, and ECOMOVE International, Germany, is organizing a 3-day mini-festival of films on the politics of environment, called Point Of View. The films will be screened at the Prasad's Preview Theatre everyday, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm, between 16th and 18th February.

Environment is a political issue, whether we like it or not. Today's conflicts are more about the control of natural resources than anything else. We see these conflicts in our day-to-day life, whether it is for control of land and water, or a question of who pollutes and who pays, they are all about people's problems, and thus influence the politics of our day. It is happening around us, but we do not realize it. And when there is a realization, there is a lack of perspective. The perspective doesn't happen because, more often than not, environmental film festivals talk about non-controversial issues.

Point Of View is a sincere effort to look beyond the obvious, to give a platform for the alternative voices and untold stories. Most of these films have enjoyed wide viewership and appreciation elsewhere in India and abroad. The films straddle a wide spectrum of subjects, from India becoming a dump yard for the wastes created by European consumerism to the effects of depleted Uranium on American soldiers; from fishermen's woes in Tamil Nadu to a lone woman's fight against a toxic dump in South Africa; from the World Bank's environmental politics to locals' anger against tourism in Goa, from the horror stories of genetic engineering in Canada to the scams behind flood control in Bihar.

Today, the last day, Suits & Savages: Why The World Bank Won't Save The World, a US documentary about the truths behind the Global Environment Fund, will be screened. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) looks promising on paper - it offers two and a half billion dollars from the world's governments to spend on global green aid and an inclusive, democratic model of governance. But does this newest of the international financial institutions live up to its own rhetoric?

Suits & Savages looks at a GEF/World Bank eco-development project from the ground up - travelling between one remote tribe in India to another more powerful one in Washington DC; spanning the gulf between their environments with a video letter from the forest to the Bank.

The screenings are free for all. For further details, please contact Bh S S Prakash Reddy of the Hyderabad Film Club at 2373-0841/93910-20243.