“The Last Lion” and “Char….The No-Man's Island” both the films bagged the best of festival awards in both Indian and International category respectively on the 7th CMS Vatavaran International Environment and Wildlife Film Festival held here.


The Char... The No-Man's Island was screened under the Indian film category on Environmental Conservation and Last Lions was screened under the International feature film.

 Here last day of the festival, the total 33 awards were declared in 11 categories and the awards were handed over by Union minister KS Rao and former Delhi Chief minister Shiela Dixit.

The awards were chosen by a jury of 13 personalities headed by film maker Amol Palekar. Award-winning filmmaker Ramesh Sharma chaired the jury for international awards.

In the festival, the other Indian films includes The Flight directed by Saransh Sugandh under animation category and joint awards for Chilika-Jewel of Odisha directed by Shekar Dattari and Tiger Dynasty directed by S Nallamuthu in the category of Biodiversity.

A special Jury Special Mention Award was received to Gaur in my Garden directed by Rita Banerjee and Mangroves - Forests of the Tide directed by Suresh Elamon. In the feature film category, Sthalam, directed by Shiva Prasad got recognition.

The festival saw the developing directors who bagged the newcomer awards both in the adult and children’s categories. The award was bagged by Anjali Nayar for Jal Khet (Water Fields) and Laxmikanta Jena for A Story in the category of adult and children respectively.

The Series awards based on Environment and Wildlife was bagged jointly by Greeny the Great and Saving the Ganga directed by Dhananjay Bhopale and Bahar Dutt respectively.

The documentary Dammed by Nandan Saxena and Kavita Bahl got high appreciation during the festival, which bagged award under the category of Water for All.

The five day film festival screened was classified around four sub-themes - Blue Agenda, Forest Biodiversity, Mountain Biodiversity and Wetlands Biodiversity and Inland Waters.

The theme of the festival was "Mainstreaming Biodiversity Conservation" that was not held in an auditorium but it open at the IGNCA.