We are delighted to share the news that two student films produced as part of the activities for the project were screened at the 4th Rain International Nature Film Festival (11-12 March 2022, CMS College, Kottayam, Kerala, India). ‘Latent City (Feeding Without Footprint)’ by Avikal and Pankaj and ‘The Giant Towers’ by Heena and Monazza’ were selected as part of the competition for student films. The filmmakers are students of the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI). The films were produced as part of a short course on ‘Storytelling for Environmental Change: Tackling Air Pollution’ offered to MA students at JMI; it was led by Dr Sabina Kidwai (Co-I) and supported by Dr Pawas Bisht (PI) and Dr Eva Giraud (Co-I). Congratulations to the filmmakers!
Dr Pawas Bisht is a Senior Lecturer in Media, Communications and Culture, Deputy Director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures, and Programme Director for the MA Global Media programmes at Keele University. He is an experienced media researcher and documentary filmmaker and has previously worked for leading institutions in the UK (Loughborough and Leicester) and India (AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia). His research focuses on media and cultural politics in relation to environmental activism, cultural memory, and public mobilisations of documentary storytelling. Pawas is currently leading ‘Storytelling for Environmental Change’, a two-year research project (2021-2023) that mobilises environmental storytelling to tackle the catastrophic challenge of urban air pollution confronting India (funded by the British Academy's Humanities and Social Sciences’ Tackling Global Challenges Programme, supported under the UK Government's Global Challenges Research Fund). His earlier ethnographic research on social movements and memory-work in relation to the Bhopal Gas Disaster has been published in leading journals including Media, Culture & Society and Contemporary South Asia.
His films have been shown on Channel 4 (UK), CNBC, and Doordarshan (India’s national public service broadcaster) as well as in art venues in UK, India, US, and Europe. They include work commissioned by the United Nations Development Programme and the Global Environment Facility. Recently produced films include 'Back to the Drawing Board' (2017), a portrait of the British designers Pat Albeck and Peter Rice, ‘Memory Archipelago’ (2018), an examination of the politics of Gulag memory on the Solovetsky Islands in Russia’s Far North, and ‘(Not) Acting Our Age’ (2019), examining ageing, theatre and creativity.
Pawas is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College.
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