Hello Rainmatter Community!
I am excited to report to all of you on the learnings, feedback and experience of All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALT EFF) 2024, it’s 5th annual edition.
ALT EFF 2024 took place from November 22nd to December 8th, 2024.
What we did:
- Curated a program of 72 trailblazing environmental films, from nearly 500 film submissions.
- Hosted 100+ live screenings across India and 10 internationally in Ireland, Nepal, Costa Rica, Chile, and New York, including a 600 person Opening Night in Mumbai at Liberty Cinema.
- Hosted 700+ school & college screenings! Ranging in age from 1st graders to university students.
- Hosted 53 filmmaker Q&A sessions across the festival events
- Hosted 33 workshops & panel discussions with leading environmentalist in India
- Awarded prize money to 8 environmental filmmakers globally
We invite you to view the follow up documents from the 2024 Festival:
What we learned / challenges
- Screenings in villages and at tier 2 & tier 3 cities continue to be our strongest. Our audience attendance numbers are high and folks are very engaged. Screening partners in village and tier 2 cities are excited to make ALT EFF their own, and add to the experience by curating rich additions like serving meals, putting on theatre plays, setting up artists markets and bringing in local musicians.
- ALT EFF’s specialty really is our curation; which was praised throughout the festival by the audience. This continues to set us apart and makes the ALT EFF experience incredibly unique in India.
- More is not better in urban centers. This year, we doubled the amount of screenings we hosted and spread ourselves across cities. As a result, we split our audience and some screenings had low footfall.
- School screenings are a hit! Our curation works brilliantly for students and the feedback from schools we’ve received is consistently stellar.
- Dubbing films increased access in rural India to ALT EFF films, but we need to revisit dubbing with bigger budgets for better quality.
Where we are headed:
- Concentrating our efforts in urban centers so that each key city sports a robust, single, multi-day event while continuing to prioritise rural screenings and language accessibility.
- Expanding ALT EFF Film Club. Piloted in 2024 in Goa, Bangalore and Mumbai, Film Club was a big success. 100 people signed up as members and 400 people attended with one-off tickets. More than anything, Film Club proved its viability in the strength of the community bonds formed and the rich conversations shared. This year we will expand to 9 locations: Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kochi, Hyderabad, Delhi, and Ahmedabad. Film Club kicks off in April and runs monthly through September, every third Friday of the month.
- Strengthening ALT EFF as a pillar for budding environmental filmmakers in India by continuing our funding and mentorship program with our key partners in the field. This will include a Environmental Journalism Masterclass & Short Film Fund with Mongabay India and a Short Film Fund with Mercedez Benz Research and Development India (MBRDI) that includes mentorship through Green Stories.
- Curating for other arts, cultural or community based events through ALT EFF Curations, which brings bespoke film selections to any event across India.
- If funding is secured in 2025, we will launch the pilot of our awaited schools program. After screening in 700+ schools in December 2024, our network is robust and ready!
As ALT EFF continues to grow, we invite in partnership from any fellow Rainmatter Grantee as a host for the festival, or for a conversation around Curations. Anyone involved in a community that thinks environmental films and dialogue would enrich the community experience, we invite you to be in touch at [email protected]