Every Sunday, Chennai-based Environmentalists Foundation of India will be telling Tamil Nadu the story of its rivers, lakes and other fresh-water bodies. In a project that has been months in the making, EFI’s communication wing—Environmental Film Association (EFA)— has been meeting academicians, researchers, digging through archives, and capturing the State’s water bodies and the people around them, for a documentary series that will be available for viewers on TV as well as online.
The first documentary in the series was broadcast on Sunday, informs EFI founder Arun Krishnamurthy, adding that he can’t divulge much information about the TV channel and the tie-up. He does, however, talk about what the documentaries cover, and how. “In Chennai, we will be covering the three rivers: Kosathalaiyar, Cooum and Adyar. We will also film documentaries on Madambakkam, Keelkattalai and Mudichur lakes, among other lakes and tanks,” he informs over the phone, while on field shooting for the Kaveri documentary. Some of the other rivers of the State—or that flow through the State—that the documentary series will look at are the Then Ponnaiyar, Palar and Vaigai.
The EFA team, which consists all of five members, aren’t new to documentary filmmaking. Says Krishnamurthy, “We have made documentaries specific to water bodies of Chennai, Coimbatore and Pondicherry. All our documentaries follow a similar pattern which includes detailed story telling on the lakes, ponds and rivers of the given city. We are focusing on freshwater bodies such as our rivers too.”
“We wish to bring the positive and breathtaking stories of our rivers to the wider world. We are taking these documentaries on lakes and rivers to schools, colleges and offices across the state to sensitise our audience on the need for conserving them,” he adds.
The idea is to take the State’s water bodies out of the limited, textbook-like spotlight, and treat them as tales to be narrated. “Personally I am fascinated that our water bodies have so much history and character to them,” says Krishnamurthy, “We want to tell the stories of the kings, their wars and their plans to establish these water bodies. Our focus is on our rich culture and heritage related to water conservation. We are covering aspects of Archaeology, History, Natural History, modern day threats and futuristic survival of our water bodies.”
It takes the team about 45-50 days to make one documentary, he says. “The effort covers meeting with academicians, researchers and finding archives which have information on our water bodies.”
Having said that, the team isn’t exactly complaining: ground research has its fascinating moments. “It is an interesting journey as we are learning so much more than what is available in the internet. We are a small little team of five people. One person dedicated to script-research and direction, one person to edit, one person for the voice over, one person for the music, one person for the camera...we have our hands full for the next five months.”
The documentary series will be screened every Sunday at 9.30 am, and is also available at EFI’s website www.videopeople.org.
