All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALT EFF)’s opening weekend in Bengaluru was about urgent conversations regarding the environment, and where those dialogues unfolded through the language of cinema.
Audiences got a glimpse into sewage systems and landfills, solar parks and wetlands, fungi and forests, folk theatre and immersive experiences, often in a single afternoon. For festival director and co-founder, Kunal Khanna, an economist‑turned systems thinker and permaculturist, the goal was clear: to bring together a range of films that would provide a way for people to take action.
A panel discussion in action | Photo Credit: Deva Manohar Manoj
Human stories, the heart of climate cinema
Across the various rooms at Bangalore International Centre (BIC) where the festival was held, the importance of the environment never felt distant; it showed up in villages, cities, factories and forests. From stories such as Kentaro (Tilmann Stewart, Gaku Matsuda) and Future Council (Damon Gameau) making us see the “future” through the eyes of children, to Marching in the Dark (Kinshuk Surjan) following women living with the fallout of farmer suicides and institutional neglect and The Dooars World (Shaon Pritam Baral) stepping into a fragile corridor where wildlife and people coexist, the festival highlighted its core principles of change.
