How Jacaranda Tales is nurturing climate-aware citizens

How Jacaranda Tales is nurturing climate-aware citizens

The recently concluded second edition of Jacaranda Tales is being screened online till November 15. Jacaranda Tales is a film festival dedicated solely to climate change and related topics.

The theme of this year’s festival which ran from October 6 to 10 was Climate Resilience. The second edition of Jacaranda Tales was organised by the Bangalore Film Society, Kriti Film Club, Gamana Women’s Collective, Environment Support Group, Bharat Gyan Vigyan Samiti, Karnataka Gandhi Smaraka Nidhi and Mount Carmel College.

Mukund Krishna Kumar, one of the members of Bangalore Film Society (BFS) says the first edition of Jacaranda Tales held last year, was themed Women and Nature, and was jointly arranged by the Bangalore Sustainability Forum and BFS. 

“Every year, the theme of the festival is in connection to nature, sustainability and the like, as one of the mandates of the Bangalore Sustainability Forum is to promote conversations on the same and create forums for people to come together and learn.”

While their primary motive is to make the conversation on climate change more accessible through different formats, Mukund says, “Films are a great way to tell a story and spread information, and we hope they kickstart the conversation on climate change at different places, with different people.”

Working on this idea, the organisers split this year’s festival at two venues — Gandhi Bhavan and Mount Carmel College. “We felt taking this festival to college students was an important part of spreading awareness about climate change.”

In the same vein, the organisers made it a non-ticketed event, free and open to all, “As we didn’t want to put any restrictions on those who would like to attend,” says Mukund.