KOCHI: The Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) screened the acclaimed documentary film, ‘The Leopard’s Tribe’, on Wednesday evening. Directed by Miriam Chandy Menacherry, the 39-minute documentary essays the acquisition of the Aarey forest area adjoining the bustling Mumbai for building a metro car shed.
It focuses on development versus conservation, and talks about environmental protection through the inhabitant tribal community. For the original population of Aarey in Goregaon, renowned for the Sanjay Gandhi National Park called the ‘Lungs of Mumbai’, the big cat is their god of daily worship.
Even so, the forest belt is being destroyed for a facility to maintain and repair the local trains that form the core of the megacity’s surface transport.
The film pans out the message that sustainable construction activities can go hand-in-hand with economic rise and social well-being. KBF showed the film in Edappally, amid the active participation of Kochiites.
The screening at the Kerala Museum comes five months ahead of the sixth edition of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale (KMB) by the KBF.