Since the dawn of time, storytelling in community has shaped our mindset, our outlook and ultimately, our behaviour. With record heat, oscillating droughts & floods,

fires, melting glaciers (and ... you know the rest) our current narrative needs some course correcting.

All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALT EFF) is back for a 4th edition, pan-India cultural event. Join us at Saraya Cafe for a unique evening of cinema, art & community. Watch award-winning global films on regeneration, activism, resilience and hope and engage in conversations with India’s most inspiring change-makers. Let’s restore the narrative of stewardship, together. All are welcome!

Program

12:00 pm

DOORS OPEN

Mhari Topli: Baans Bhamori

Finding Solo

No Water No Village

1:30 pm:

Planet Soil

3:30 pm:

Biopixels

The Egret River

Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw + Q&A with Director (Shilpika Bordoloi)

4:30 pm:

Panel: Ocean Health in Goa with Gabriela D’Cruz + Sean Tuckey (filmmaker)

4:45 pm:

The Good Ocean

5:00 pm:

We are Guardians

7:00 pm:

Pleistocene Park

9:00 pm:

Live Music by AllYellow

Program Details:

Mhari Topli: Baans Bhamori 

{13:22 minutes; Laxminarayan Devda, Pradeep Lekhwar} INDIA PREMIERE

The film follows a bunch of people from Ratanpur village foraging for wild oyster mushrooms in the forest by the river Narmada, capturing their deep connection with the abundance and the mysteries of the wild. English Subtitles

Finding Solo

{12:06 minutes; Myles Storey} INDIA PREMIERE

Finding Solo follows Malaysian filmmaker, Myles Storey, as he returns home in search of Solo, a white-handed gibbon believed to be the last of his kind in an isolated forest. English, Malay; English Subtitles

No Water No Village

{29 minutes, Munmun Dhalaria}

Can India's highest villages survive without snow? English, Hindi, Tibetan, Urdu; English Subtitles

Planet Soil

{1:23 hours; Mark Verkerk} INDIA PREMIERE

Planet Soil is a groundbreaking documentary that unveils the vital, the often overlooked, world beneath our feet. Dutch; English Subtitles

Biopixels

{3:28 minutes; Kristina Dutton}

Biopixels uses the latest microscope technology to explore evolutionary biology through the wings of butterflies. English; English Subtitles

Egret River

{4:02 minutes; Wan-Ling Liu)

A man and an egret lose their secret field and then decide to find a new one. No dialogues

Mau: Spirit Dreams of the Cheraw

{8 min; Shilpika Bordoloi}

Mau visually documents ritual folklore, performance and Cheraw (Bamboo dance), revealing the forgotten histories of why Bamboo dance was performed, and what connections exist between the human and non-human through Bamboo in Mizoram. Mizo; English Subtitles

The Good Ocean

{11:18 minutes; Sean Tuckey} INDIA PREMIERE

In an attempt to protect the Goan coastline by elevating it, ecologist and entrepreneur Gabriella D'cruz partners with a prominent restaurant in Mumbai, Masque. English; English Subtitles

We Are Guardians

{1:22 hours; Edivan Guajajara, Chelsea Greene, Rob Grobman} INDIA PREMIERE

As the Indigenous forest guardians of the Tenetehara fend off the incessant encroachment of illegal loggers and invaders, a global story erupts entwining science, politics and ultimately the fate of the Amazon rainforest. English, Portuguese; English Subtitles

Pleistocene Park

{1:41 hours, Luke Griswold-Tergis} INDIA PREMIERE

Can two Russian scientists stave off a worst case scenario of global environmental catastrophe and reshape humanity’s relationship with the natural world?

Panelists & Directors

Shilpika Bordoloi (Director of Mau: The Spirit Dreams of Cheraw)

Shilpika Bordoloi is a filmmaker, performer, educator and curator. She is the founder and Artistic Director of Brahmaputra Cultural Foundation (BCF), a space of—and for—community participation, leadership, artistic journeys/performances, exchanges and education through arts and culture. She is a visiting faculty to the National School of Drama (NSD) and National Institute of Design (NID) and at State University of Film and Television, Haryana. Shilpika has been awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for Contemporary/Experimental Dance in India. Currently she is exploring the broad umbrella of Body Wisdom where healing modalities, stage work, film and community work intersect in a multi-dimensional way. Her debut short film Mau premiered at 2023 IDSFFK and has been selected for many festivals including Indian Panorama at IFFI 2023. Her second short film Sakyad premiered at Jio Mami 2023. Both these films intersect Somatic Movement, Ecology, Indigenous Knowledge Systems in the backdrop of the crisis of climate and culture.

Sean Tuckey ( Director of The Good Ocean)

Sean Tuckey was born and spent his formative years in Zimbabwe, before moving to New Zealand and eventually studying Biological Sciences. Another move brought him to India where he currently lives with his wife and 2 little girls. He has been a photographer for over a decade and more recently branched into filmmaking, which has brought a different form of expression for his photo journalistic passion.