The One Tree Project - An Australian Documentary: Events in Hyderabad

REVIEW FOR THE ONE TREE PROJECT...

If you take a print-out of this write-up, it's directly affecting a tree somewhere. However, you still should take a print-out of this write-up. So you remember to watch this movie.

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 first day, The One Tree Project, an Australian documentary regarding wastage of wood in the chipping industry, will be screened. In a direct response to the wastage of trees in the wood chip industry, a community group of over 30 craftspersons and artists takes a single felled tree saved from wood chipping, and each creates something beautiful. As it chronicles the production and exhibitions of these art objects, The One Tree Project encourages reflection on the scale and role of the practice of wood-chipping in Australian environmental management.

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.