Shillong, Jan 9: The first ever Uranium Film Festival, a world-wide festival showcasing films based on experiences of the people coming in contact with nuclear energy all over the world will be screened in Shillong on Thursday.
The two-day uranium film festival-India in Shillong which will be hosted by the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) will be held at Hotel Majestic Polo from 11am onwards.
It was learnt that the organizers of this travelling film festival-India Chapter has chosen Shillong as the centre amongst other states of the country to screen their films and documentaries based on uranium considering the fact that the state acquires an important place in the uranium map of India.
Informing reporters about the film festival, festival Partner and renowned journalist and filmmaker Shri Prakash said that the film festival aimed at bridging the gap between independent knowledge of the citizens and experts’ views on nuclear energy.
“Uranium is considered as a green and clear energy yet there is a myth linked with this nuclear energy giving rise to various questions and the answers of which has no clear cut dimension”, he said.
Highlighted that individual judgement and understanding on the issue weigh more than experts’ opinion, Prakash said that the decision-making on nuclear energy by the citizens should come from independent knowledge sources.
“We should learn from experiences of the communities of the past to take new decision and also from communities who live sustainable lives. We cannot simply leave all this issues to technocrats, corporate, bureaucrats and politicians”, the festival partner said.
Highlighting more on the festival, a festival director from Brazil Norbert G Suchanek said the first international uranium film festival was created in May 2011 at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil with a motive to inform and highlight to the people issues pertaining to nuclear and radioactive
Meanwhile, festival co-director from Brazil Marcia Gomes de Oliveira said while some media outlets in India have been trying to bridge this gap, there is more need and scope for information and discussion. “By organising this festival as a major event, we will move beyond debates, focusing on the safety issues and major accidents and initiate new thoughts”, she said.
Oliveira has also called upon the filmmakers of the state to work on such complicated issues and to make various art forms with these kind of films and the same is not only limited to documentaries but fictions and animation as well.
Besides film makers, she also urged the academicians to take part in the festival with the sole purpose to gather the real deal of uranium mining and thereby impart the same to their students. Altogether 14 films will be screened in the two-day uranium film festival in Shillong.(SP News)
