Zaheerabad: Community Media Festival from from tomorrow

Zaheerabad: Jai Chandiram Memorial Third National Community Media Film Festival is to be held for three days at the Deccan Development Society (DDS) Pachasaale campus, Machnoor Village in Zaheerabad, from February 13.

According to DDS, the festival is aimed at creating a unique platform for grassroots film-makers from rural communities to share their films and to network with such groups from across the country and outside. This year, it has received quite engaging films from community media initiatives from MP, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Odisha, Nagaland, Assam, Telangana, Maharashtra, UP, Gujarat, New Delhi and also six films from West Africa, under International genre.

On February 13, along with a screening of selected films, DDS is organising a panel discussion on "Can community media help in self-representations of the rural issues?" The festival, the first of its kind in the country was launched by DDS Community Media Trust in 2017, which invited more than 20 films made by community film-makers from across the country. The panel includes ChinnaNarsamma, veteran film-maker and media coordinator of the trust, Nag Ashwin, a prominent Telugu film director and screen writer, Prof Vinod Pavarala, UNESCO chair on community media, Department of Communication, University of Hyderabad, along with development activists, media practitioners in the festival and Round Table.

For the last 20 years DDS has been conducting a month-long celebration of bio-diversity called Mobile Bio-diversity Festival ('patapantalapanduga') as a cultural campaign mode to promote the values of bio-diversity among rural communities.

This is the longest campaign by any civil society organisation in the country in recent history and sees how an issue such as biodiversity, which is normally seen as scientists concern, is taken to an attractive combination of cultural activity. The Bio-diversity Festival 2021, which was flagged off a month back, is going to conclude on February 15 after travelling through 23 villages and series of four mandal conventions. For the closing ceremony on February 15, Sunitha Laxma Reddy, chairperson, Telangana State Commission for Women, is to be the chief guest, Upasana Kamineni, vice-chairman of Apollo Foundation too.