Adding yet another feather to its glorious international film festival journey, multi-award winning English documentary ‘A Zero to Hero Collaborative Approach,’ written and directed by Biswanath Rath and produced by his studio BnR Films has been selected for screening in ‘AgriCulture Film Festival-2017’ in ‘AgriCulture World Category’ to be held at Rome.
The film will be screened among 11 international films on December 9. The film represents India in the prestigious film festival.
The AgriCulture Festival aims to raise awareness of the links between culture, agriculture, food production and biodiversity and to become an innovative environment where to meet and exchange audiovisual productions on these links. The festival wishes to bring young people, the world of learning, independent filmmakers and cinema-lovers closer to farmers and their world.
English Documentary ‘A Zero To Hero Collaborative Approach’ tells the inspirational success story of a unique Public-Private- Academia-Community Partnership (PPACP) which led to the upliftment of farmers in Nabarangpur, otherwise known as District Zero, for being the poorest district in India. The project has transformed them into heroes.
The documentary, made by Biswanath was released on October 16 last (World Food Day) as a tribute to the farmers. It went on to receive official selections/screenings in seven International Film Festivals within a year of its release. All these film festivals have been held outside India where this film has represented India/Asia.
“While doing research on the positive developments in KBK region, I came across this unique story of ‘Centre of Empowerment’ in Nandahandi Block of Nabarangpur district modeled on Public-Private-Academia-Community’ Partnership’ (PPACP). It was so inspiring that we decided to make a documentary on it,” said Biswanath.
The ‘Centre of Empowerment’ spread over 31 Acres of land developed by civil society organisation ‘Govindalaya’ at Soruguda village (Dangarbheja Panchayat) appears to be slowly changing image of the district. Experts from OUAT, KVK and district level officers are using its facilities to train local farmers and demonstrate various agriculture and horticulture related techniques. 200 farmers have already benefited from this initiative.
