News from the CEPA e-mail list

Winner of the Ecocinema Ramsar/MedWet award (10/06/04)

Good morning everyone:

First a small change on the CEPA Web pages: I’ve given up trying to maintain the old CEPA news page – it’s not that there was no news, it’s simply that with the very limited time available, I have never been able to keep up with it. With a helping hand from Dwight Peck, the Ramsar Webmaster (amongst many other things!), we now have a “News from the CEPA e-mail list” page where all the CEPA e-list messages (in English, French and Spanish) are posted. Although it was not possible to include all previous e-list messages, Dwight added quite a number from the past, and is now posting all the new messages from all 3 lists. He’s also maintained some of the original news postings at the bottom of the page. Here’s the URL http://www.ramsar.org/outreach_news.htm .

So now, if you don’t remember the message I posted on the 27th May about the Ramsar MedWet Ecocinema award, you can try out the new page! Today’s main message is a follow-up to this with the announcement of the first winner of this new award (along with a monetary prize of 4000€ ). This message was first posted on the Ramsar Forum by Sebastià Semene of the Secretariat and I have copied it here almost unaltered.

“Aamakaar, the Turtle People” was chosen last Saturday night (5 June 2004) by the jury of the 4th EcoCinema Festival as this year's best movie on wetlands and water. Surabhi Sharma's film was chosen by the jury because of its innovative focus on the inextricable link between people and nature, one of the main features of Ramsar's wise use principle.

The jury also wanted to acknowledge the work of Surabhi Sharma, a young but promising film director who started her career in 1997 with the film "Work in progress". The particularly well-managed balance of Sharma's third film's images and soundtrack results in a high quality product, from both the ecological and the technical points of view -- halfway between a documentary and a feature film.

From the Ramsar Convention's perspective, Peter Bridgewater, Secretary General of the Convention, during the awards ceremony, highlighted the fact that "the film insists on the relation between people and nature, showing human activities and populations as an inextricable part of the environmental equilibrium. It also recounts a story about one of Ramsar's priority and yet most under-represented ecosystems: coastal and marine areas", though this additional factor was not part of the jury's decision. Spyros Kouvelis, Coordinator of Ramsar's MedWet Initiative for the implementation of the Convention in this region, also drew attention to "the particularly appropriate coincidence that we have selected a film on marine ecosystems precisely on the day we are celebrating the World Environment Day on the theme of seas and oceans".

Sharma's film shows the everyday life of the so-called Turtle People, in North Kerala (India), fighting for the survival of an Olive Ridley Turtle nesting beach while their own survival is threatened by the sinking of their village due to the erosion of the shore from sand mining activity in their estuary. The film juxtaposes the community's struggle against elements threatening their village and its natural resources with the cycle of life of the turtles. "This contradiction and the choices made by this community give all its strength to the movie as well as a good lesson of philosophy and humanity", said Sebastià Semene, Special Assistant for Media, Outreach and Culture at the Ramsar Convention, and member of the jury. The Turtle People was chosen among the 92 films of the EcoCinema's 2004 selection. Originally included in the feature films section, Sharma's film attracted the attention of the Wetlands and Water jury "because of its professional quality and the use of original filming techniques, making this director a person to follow in the next few years", said Marc van Fucht, film producer and director, and member of the jury.

It's the second award Sharma has received for this film, which was chosen as the third best film by the Indian Documentary Producer's Association in 2003. The movie will be screened in the main forthcoming Ramsar and MedWet events, in addition to its normal screening schedule. The Turtle People is distributed by Chrysalis Films.

This report by Sebastià Semene and some photos of the event can be viewed at http://ramsar.org/w.n.ecocinema_medwet2004b.htm.
For more information on the EcoCinema Festival: www.ecocinema.gr.

Best wishes, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat

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Sandra Hails, CEPA Programme Officer
Ramsar Convention Secretariat
Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 999 0176; Fax: +41 22 999 0169
E-mail: hails@ramsar.org
Web Site: http://ramsar.org
CEPA mini-Web site: http://ramsar.org/outreach_index.htm

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