Award-winning film Ankur, about women facing the brunt of climate change, will premiere at the United Nations desertification meeting in Riyadh

‍Ankur, an award-winning short documentary film about women in West Bengal banding together to rebuild their lives after the devastation of cyclone Yass in 2021, has been officially selected to be screened at the United Nations COP16 conference on desertification, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, next month.  

The screening – which is the film’s premiere and marks its official release – will take place at 6pm on 3 December 2024 at the Restoration Pavilion in the Blue Zone at COP16.  

A story of resilience

Tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, which are more frequent and severe due to climate change, cause seawater flooding that can drown people, sweep homes away and destroy livelihoods by making farmland too saline to support agriculture.  

These risks are acute in the Sundarbans, a vast, fragile wetland system in the Ganges delta that straddles the India-Bangladesh border.  

Ankur – which means seedling in Bengali – tells the story of an eponymous project to empower women-led collectives in the Sundarbans to restore their homes, build new shelters and restore their farmland and their livelihoods, using a combination of traditional farming practices and novel techniques.  

Supporting over 10,000 women farmers in the Sundarbans, the Ankur project has reduced food insecurity by over 96% for more than 42,000 people, and curtailed their dependency on chemical pesticides and fertilisers by 90%. The project is a collaboration between Community Jameel and the Rupantaran Foundation, the two organisations that co-produced the film.

Collecting honours in West Bengal

Ankur has been honoured at five film festivals in West Bengal, winning prizes at the Sundarban International Film Festival and Durgapur International Film Festival.

The film was also officially selected for the West Bengal Short Film Festival, the Kolkata Shorts International Festival and the Kolkata International Micro Film Festival.

Smita Sen, co-founder of the Rupantaran Foundation, is one of the producers of the film, which is directed by Nathaniel Daudrich, head of product at Community Jameel.

Unveiling the trailer at COP29 in Baku

A trailer for Ankur was screened on 12 November 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, during the United Nations COP29 climate conference, at an event on disruptive technologies for water and food systems convened by CGIAR and Community Jameel. The event was hosted at Goals House, in an historic caravanserai in Baku’s old city, together with the Munich Security Conference.

Following the trailer, an audience of climate leaders, scientists and policymakers heard remarks by Ismahane Elouafi, executive managing director of CGIAR, and Community Jameel director George Richards, who also co-produced Ankur.  

Community Jameel and CGIAR have a long-standing partnership. Since 2019, CGIAR’s International Livestock Research Institute and Community Jameel have been among the partners of the Jameel Observatory for Food Security Early Action in Nairobi, Kenya.