John Mitty Thursday, July 12, 2012 |
Award-winning environmental film about The Ganges River screens @ Huntington’s Cinema Arts Centre
Real-to-Reel: Documentary Film Series Sponsored by Ginger & Stu Polisner. This program is partially funded by Suffolk County Executive’s Office & National Endowment for the Arts
The Ganges River nourishes the soul and washes away sins of millions who bathe in the river and drink from it. But what happens when the river is polluted? How has a holy river become unholy by those who use it? The Ganges, the iconic river of India supports 400 million people everyday. Volunteers clean the river only to find the river is still polluted. This is their story, following the journey of hope to the death and cancers that follow, revealing a controversy riddled with denials, disbelief, and damage: 25 years of delays and excuses that pollute the river and choke the nation. What is the price of saving the Ganges or the 5,000-year old culture it supports? http://www.cinemaartscentre.org/event/living-river/
More about the movie
Living River is a groundbreaking and up-close look at the pollution that’s been an ecological scourge troubling the revered Ganges River in India.
The film delivers as yet an unexplored and authentic view of the river and the people struggling to compel change. With unprecedented access, the film brings to light an age-old industry of leather production in transition, bringing in USD$4 Billion to the Indian economy at a cost of degradation of the environment and the health of the residents. Does the end justify the means? This film illustrates the irony of Hindus profiting from the skin of "holy" cows while polluting the “sacred” Ganges River.
The exposed water pollution in India is a red flag for fresh water rivers around the world suffering from endemic problems of improper and inadequate treatment plants, illegal activities by chemical industries along riverbanks, improper oversight and weak implementation of government regulatory agencies, corruption, and lack of public awareness.
About the Guest Speakers
Director/Producer
Vinit Parmar, Esq., began his film work as a sound mixer in New York fifteen years ago after making the transition from an established legal career of seven years. He works professionally as a sound mixer for features, shorts, and commercials, and continues to direct his own documentary films. He loves to teach film production courses as a full-time tenured faculty member of the Film Department at Brooklyn College as part of the City University of New York.
He is also currently producing and directing ONLY ONE CHILD: THE FANGS’ STORY, about the Fang family’s three siblings separated by their parents as they hide to avoid detection under the One-Child Policy. This project began as a Fulbright-Hayes Scholarship in 2006 on Women, Family and Social Change.
He is currently in production for QUEST FOR LIGHT, shot partly in the exotic and off-grid, ancient Sundarbans, as well as Brooklyn, about the many ways a Brooklyn resident inspires and learns from Indian villagers to practice traditional and renewable energy techniques to become sustainable in Brooklyn.
He can be reached by email at reeldocfilm@yahoo.com
Original Music Composition
Premik Russell Tubbs is a composer, arranger, producer and an accomplished multi-instrumentalist performs on various flutes, soprano, alto and tenor saxophones, wind synthesizers, and lap steel guitar who has performed many times at Cinema Arts Centre.
Premik has worked with Carlos Santana, Whitney Houston, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin, Ravi Shankar, Narada Michael Walden, Clarence Clemons, Ornette Coleman, Jackson Browne, Jean-Luc Ponty, Lonnie Liston-Smith, Sting, Billy Joel, and James Taylor, just to name a few. He is equally adept in pop, R&B, jazz, world and experimental genres.
jmitty@longislandyellowpages.com Appears In: Press Releases
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