All Living Things Environmental Film Festival's 2nd edition to be held virtually from 9 to 17 October

The second edition of the All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALT EFF) will be held virtually from 9 to 17 October. The organizers will screen 44 films based on climate change, the environment and conservation from 31 countries.

Among the jury members, there will be the internationally acclaimed photographer and filmmaker Michael Snyder, National award-winning filmmaker Anand Patwardhan and actor Amin Hajee. Also, this year, Sophy Vsivaraman, head of the Indian Documentary Foundation, has joined the advisory board with environmental documentary filmmaker Mike Pandey.

The 2nd edition of ALT EFF will have a new section, the 'Youth Category’, in addition to the existing International Feature Films, International Short Films, Indian Feature Films and Indian Short Films sections.

Some of the most interesting films this year are Nirmal Chander’s Moti Bagh (2019), which is centred on a farmer, activist and poet Vidyadutt Sharma and his Nepali farmhand Ram Singh’s attempt to keep a dream called Moti Bagh alive as they plough the fields there to restore its former glory. The film chronicles the changing landscape in resistance to the forces of migration.

Alexandre Berman and Olivier Pollet’s Ophir (2020), a joint collaboration from France and Papua New Guniea, tells the story of an extraordinary indigenous 'eco-revolution' for life, land and culture, leading up to the creation of the world’s newest nation in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea.

Christi Cooper and Olivia Ahnemann’s Youth V Gov (2020) documents the journey of 21 young Americans suing the world’s most powerful government, to protect their constitutional rights for a stable climate.

Pooja Das Sarkar’s Sagarputra: Offspring of the Sea (2021) describes how the oldest inhabitants of Mumbai — the Koli fisherfolk from the village of Trombay Koliwada, are gradually moving away from the traditional livelihood because of the toxic, plastic-filled water of the sea and also for being locked in by the government's infrastructure projects on all sides.

Renowned artist from the Netherlands Steve Cutts’s A Viral Spiral is an animated film that was created for the Nicolaas G Pierson Foundation. The film not only visualizes the factors that cause pandemics but also points at the urgent measures we must take to reduce the risk of future catastrophes of a similar nature.

Global audiences need to purchase All-Access Pass tickets to view 26 films while Indian viewers must purchase the pass for the Indian audience to get access to 18 additional films.

The first edition of the festival was held in December last year.