With its heart set on highlighting the issues plaguing our rivers and oceans, the Moving Waters Film Festival deliberated on cinema’s role in the endeavour

Two questions dominated one’s mind at the Moving Waters Film Festival (MWFF) which concluded recently in Bengaluru.

Let’s take up the first: What motivates filmmakers to journey the length and breadth of this world in order to make their film?

Take photographer Peter McBride for example. One fine morning, Peter decided to follow the Colorado river in USA from its source to sea -- to map its journey, its pitfalls and ‘the different straws’ that drink from the river. He discovers much to his dismay that since 1998, the river has stopped flowing into the ocean. Leaving us with a searing image towards the end of the film, we see an exhausted Peter walk the coarse and barren stretch of the Colorado river which was once alive and gushing.

All the way at the other end of the world, New Zealand’s Peter Young’s story isn’t too different. In The Last Ocean (2012), Peter documents the long and arduous fight to save Ross Sea in the Antarctic, the last untouched stretch of the ocean which is threatened by giant corporations wishing to exploit it for industrial fishing.

Envisaged both to celebrate the richness of rivers and oceans as well as to point out the issues that affect them today, MWFF presented us with a wide variety of films and lectures, each of them made by a tirelessly passionate filmmaker or a team of filmmakers--right from the commemorative Cascada(2013) by Anson Fogel and Skip Armstrong which picked one remote waterfall in the Mexican jungle and presented a stunning exploration of it in eight minutes to MunmunDhalaria’s Unearthed which presented strong arguments against sand mining in the Cauvery, closer home.

As one marvelled at the kind of perseverance with which each filmmaker and his team pursued the river and the ocean to tell its story on its behalf, the second question came to mind: to what end?

Awareness and conservation are the immediate goals that come to mind but how effective is film as a medium in this respect? The festival too decided that this is a question that needs deliberation and so, on day two, KalyanVerma, wildlife filmmaker and conservationist, asked a packed auditorium this question: “Can films help save our environment?”

The question had surfaced the previous day too when a member of the audience had wondered aloud about the ‘utility value’ of these films. We watch these films and then go home or change the channel. So what do these films hope to achieve, he had asked. Filmmaker Taylor Graham who made Taming the Teesta (2015) said that these films at least spark a conversation where they are seen. And since these films travel, he said that they have a role to play in engineering a global effort towards a cause.

Ricky Kej and Amoghavarsha’s collaboration Kiribati, which was screened at MWFF is a case in point. In the form of a near-complete music video, the project aims to create global awareness about the danger facing this small island nation in the Pacific Ocean which is touted to be among the first to perish as a result of the severe consequences of climate change. It has some stunning images of the island and its people, a message from the President of the nation, accompanied with music by a wide range of musicians from across the world.

“But how can we make people care?” asked Kalyan. He acknowledged that the gathering at MWFF was perhaps full of the ‘already converted’ lot for whom conservation and issues surrounding the environment matter. “But how do I convince my mother or father sitting at home?” Kalyan went around the room asking people to name that one film that changed them. “Flow,” said one and “Bottle Life,” said another. “Gandhadagudi” said a voice across the room. Kalyan was then interested in why these films worked. “As a filmmaker, what are the arguments one can use to convince a lay person to care for his or her environment. Why, for instance, should we save the tiger?” The discussion threw up answers like maintaining diversity, ecological balance and saving the tiger would mean saving the forest etc. There was also the moral argument- it is our duty as humans to do so.

He then played trailers of two films- Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s award-winning documentary Black Fish(2013) and Louis Psihoyos’s The Cove (2009). The former which is about an orca held by Sea World in USA that triggered a debate about whether it is right to keep whales captive, generated a huge impact and resulted in the shutting down of Sea World itself. The latter attempted to question the dolphin hunting practices in Japan but the film didn’t actually lead Japan to take any particular preventive measure. What worked in one film and didn’t in another is what Kalyan called the ‘emotional argument.’ “When you tell a story from an individual orca’s point of view and make an emotional argument, it tends to work better,” he said.

That said, making a film alone won’t suffice, he added. Even today, despite the Internet and its various avenues, there is still a problem with access to most of these films. “Channels and broadcasters seem to hate the word conservation and are reluctant to screen these films on television.”

From the Indian point of view, the other challenge, one that was witnessed even within the selection of films at the festival, was the lack of regional language conservation films. The audience could definitely be wider if filmmakers invested in regional sub-titles or dubbing, for instance.

The impact of a film, therefore, could be varied. What is important to ensure is that there is access to it.

McBride’s film which is on Vimeo has this comment, which perhaps resonates with the feelings of many in the audience at MWFF: “Your photography is so beautiful. The end result brought sadness and tears. Thank you for your research. My daughter is on an expedition today with her school to chase the Colorado from within central Texas. There is so much I do not know, but I do know that we need to make drastic changes to try and counter global warming. It starts with one person and for the Colorado, that person is you. Thank you for your work.”