Greetings from Aranyam!

Aranyam (which means forest in Sanskrit) is India's First and Only Annual International Film Festival that inculcates an interest for the Environment and Wildlife to audiences of all standings.

Our aim is to promote conservation of nature and public appreciation of biodiversity through the power of visual imagery; to unearth the grave importance for the survival of various species and to bring about a global influence to help save our world from further environmental depletion. With this note, we are delighted to announce that our 3rd International Film Festival is scheduled from the 3rd Oct- 5th October 2008.

Aranyam takes a fresh look on the environment, showcasing movies associated with wildlife, global warming and sustainable development. It is a unique non-profit program, run entirely by volunteers from all walks of life; from engineers to associates, NGOs to government employees, and moreover students from more than 50 colleges across the country come together to make this festival happen.

Last year the festival screened 30 films and travelled to 5 different cities in India (Pune, Cochin, Chennai, Vizag and Bangalore). With a great help from our dedicated volunteer group, the films were screened to an audience over 6700 and were also able to spread the message of conservation to over 2 million through media and other means of publicity. With the support of Wildscreen, we were also able to reach out to people with films of Global Warming and was certainly inspiring to see the work of the international association of wildlife film makers in this field.

Aranyam 2008 intends to top all that and aims host a collage of activities; film screenings, student film competitions, photo exhibitions and also a special RTI (Right to Information) counter for first hand advice and tips. An interactive panel for discussion and director workshops, bringing together an assortment of prominent personalities from the fields in question are also in the pipeline. In addition, the festival also aims to showcase the following events:

* Conferences:

• Environmental conservation action plan - 100+ City educational heads come together to find a solution to the future.
• Media for Environment – How to use the media to motivate an active interest in our environment and the natural world.

* Networks:

• Natural History Film Makers
• Fellowships of Film Makers with the support of the Government.

As we all know, a film festival is not one without its film makers, and so we need your help!!

We would like to take this opportunity to kindly request you to please forward this information to the members of your community and please inform them that we are on the hunt for films to screen during our three day film festival.

Also it would be really great, if you could please provide us with any suggestions that would aid us to make this festival spread the message of Love towards Nature. Your advice will be seriously considered and will be a great motivation for volunteers like us from various parts of the globe to learn from the best.

We are certain that these film will be a big catalyst for creating change makers and ambassadors for conservation; and so we sincerely hope you can help us by contributing film for this endeavour.

We would like to note that the films will be screened under the not-for-profit public screening category, the purpose of which is purely educational and so admission fees will not be charged.

Please visit our website http://www.aranyam.org/ for information regarding film entry and rules, and also for more general news about the group.

We look forward to hearing your favourable response.

Together we can make a difference!!

Thank you so much in advance.

Green regards,

Aarthi Veerupillai
http://www.aranyam.org/

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