Cashing in on the ongoing debate of ‘smart cities’, this year’s Kirloskar Vasundhara International Film Festival (KVIFF) is coming up with the theme ‘Smart and Sustainable : It’s my city’.

“It is the 10th year of KVIFF and we wanted to celebrate it in a special way. The festival has reached to six states and 26 cities. Out of these 26 cities, 14 have found place on the list of ‘smart cities’, 12 come under the list of ‘amrut cities’. When we went through the clauses of ‘smart cities’, we realised that out of 24 clauses, 15 are directly related to environment, which has been the focus of KVIFF since its inception. Hence, we decided to go with this theme,” said Virendra Chitrav, festival director. KVIFF is an yearly festival that is conducted over a span of eight days and combines exclusive national-international film screenings and a number of allied activities.

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Four personalities who have been working towards the environment at different levels will be felicitated. The awardees include Ananda Kumar from Tamil Nadu, who was recently honored with ‘Green Oscar’ for providing solution for man-animal conflict in Valparai Plateau in Southern India; Dr. Pramod Patil from Kolhapur, who recently received the Whitley Award for his extraordinary contribution in conservation efforts of Great Indian Bustards; the Women Forest Guards of Gir, Gujrath; and Sarang Yadwadkar, Pune-based architect, who has been studying issues related to Pune’s rivers for the last 13 years.