School Kids Showcase Talent in Science Film Making

The International Science Literature and Film Festival held here as part of the India International Science Festival (IISF) attracted participants including kids from both from metro cities and remote villages. The common goal was to learn how to communicate science through films.

Ruchi is a short film dealing with the importance of plants and green environment, made by Ruchi and Aakash. The film was among the ten entries in the ‘short films made by school students’ category. “We are from a very remote village. There were no trees in our school and we were not at all aware of the importance of trees. One of our teachers taught us about it. We got the idea came from there and with help of our teacher we made this three-minute film,” said Aakash.

Another young filmmaker was Newton Kushwaha who comes from a village in Uttar Pradesh and aspires to become a computer engineer. He showcased his film named ‘e-book’. “My film shows drawbacks of e-books such as likely adverse effects on our sight,” he explained.

Afreen, who studies in ninth standard in a Delhi school, has made two films – ‘Dunk the junk’ which deals with ill-effects of junk food and ‘We didn’t start the fire’ about of global warming. “The ideas for these films came from real life experiences. One of my friends is struggling with diabetes which is basically a lifestyle-related problem. So I tried to find out the reason behind this and got to know that junk food is one of the major causes,” said Afreen.

The idea behind the festival is to take science beyond laboratories and involve children to work on science around them. Rishu Tiwari, whose short film was also shown at the film festival, said though he lived in the national capital he was aware of farmers’ problems. This made him make a film on ‘Automated Agriculture’, highlighting how drones can be used to apply right amounts of insecticides, pesticides, and manure in fields.

Noted science film and documentary maker Mike Pandey was the special invitee for the programme. “Students should be encouraged to see more and more science. Events like these are an excellent opportunity to bring them closer to science. And science films are the best tool to make them learn science as the more they see the more they learn,” observed Pandey while speaking with India Science Wire.

The film festival gave an opportunity to school and college students as well as research scholars to showcase their filmmaking talent and win cash prizes. There were 23 films under three different categories. Capacity building workshops in science communication, science film appreciation, discussions, interactive sessions with eminent science communicators, authors, filmmakers, and a science book fair were also held during the event. (India Science Wire)

By Jyoti Singh

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