Festival Data:

• Established: 2002
• Genre: Documentary, General
• Attendance: 15000
• Total Number of Films Screened: 304
• Total Screenings: 350

• Competitive
• Has Seminars
• Workshops

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

CMS VATAVARAN Environment and Wildlife Film Festival is India's one and only biennially competitive and travelling film festival. CMS VATAVARAN is India's homegrown environment and wildlife films festival and has grown to acquire international acclaim. The festival is a learning experience for all who attend and become a part the environment awareness movement that CMS VATAVARAN is. The festival has received support from Ministry of Environment and Forests, GoI.

CMS VATAVARAN, a visionary initiative of CMS, is a movement, an activity forum promoting space for environment issues in the public media serving the dual purpose of generating awareness on environmental issues and to recognize and applaud the environment and wild life filmmakers. By using film screenings and various parallel events, the festival provides a platform to create awareness around the local environmental problems, look at possible solutions, build opinion and inspire people to push for change.

CMS VATAVARAN firmly believes that a clean, green and healthy environment is every body's right and so is the opportunity to be active takers on the issue! CMS VATAVARAN is the most prestigious, one of its own kind influential national event for the environment and filmmakers fraternity and all those who are concern about it. The festival is about greening the mind. It is a movement spotlighting issues of local, regional and national concern and creating a dialogue between and amongst various stakeholders.

In 2003 it was decided to showcase the award-wining films in other metros, state capitals and smaller cities and build engaging interactive programmes around it. Thus was laid the foundation for the CMS VATAVARAN  Environment and Wildlife Traveling Film Festival. The Traveling Film Festival is organized once in two years across India and the world.

To date, five Competitive (2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2009 in Delhi) and three Traveling (2004, 2006 and 2008 in over 20 Indian and international cities) film festivals has been organized.
 
2004: The first travelling edition of CMS VATAVARAN film festival went to Dehradun, Chennai, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Kolkata, Kaziranga, Guwahati and Golaghat.

2005: The 3rd CMS VATAVARAN competitive film festival held from November 21- 24, 2005 receives tremendous response- 244 entries, nine awards worth Rs 10 lakhs and over 5000 people participate. One hundred and thirty-four new filmmakers join the festival. The theme was Forest for Life.  The 2005 Steering Committee Chairperson was Dr Karan Singh, eminent scholar and Member of Parliament and the jury is chaired by noted filmmaker Shri Shyam Benegal. The high-profile event is splashed in newspapers and finds space on the Internet, more than 105 news items in dailies and 95 articles on the Internet. The event partners are Star TV, Doordarshan, Indian Airlines, GTZ and UNEP. 

2006: Traveling Festival goes overseas to Abu Dhabi and Sao Paulo apart from the domestic circuit (Bangalore, Chandigarh, Chennai, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kashmir, Kolkata, Pune, Ranchi and Sirmour). Twelve cities, 36 days, 350 films screenings, 11 workshops/ symposiums/ panel discussions/open forums, 13 thematic exhibitions, more than 220 news items on the festival in national and regional newspapers, and participation of around 40,000 people. The figures are a simple statistical resemblance of the movement called CMS VATAVARAN.

Festival 2007 was a five-day long international event offering a wide array of awards, programs and participation. Held at the Indian Habitat Centre in Stein Auditorium, The main attractions of the festival were the best of Indian and International Nominated films, Panorama of Climate Change Films, International Summit on Climate Change - experts and who's who of the fraternity were the esteemed panelists; technical workshops; expert talks by eminent filmmakers, conservationists, environmentalist; open forums, tête-à-tête with filmmakers; film bazaar, exhibition of cartoons etc.

Film Submissions:

• Accepts direct submissions
• Call for Entry: http:/ / www.cmsvatavaran.org/ inner.php?cat=submission