Indians to feature in UK wildlife library

Naresh Bedi and Mike Pandey will feature in WildFilmHistory library under construction in Bristol.

Movies by two Indian filmmakers will feature in a unique British library that will trace the history of environment and wildlife filmmaking in the last 100 years.

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Naresh Bedi and Mike Pandey, both recipients of the Wildscreen Panda Award, better known as the Green Oscar, will feature in the library, "WildFilmHistory", which is coming up in Bristol.

"It is always a great honour to be part of an international community and get recognition for your hard work," said Bedi.

Wildscreen, the organiser of one of the most respected environment film festivals, is constructing the library.

"I hope the effort will prove beneficial for wildlife filmmakers, environmentalists and nature lovers," Bedi, 60, told IANS.

Bedi won the Green Oscar in the best cameraman category in 1984 for the film The Ganges Ghadial, which captures the life cycle of an endangered species of crocodile.

In the initial phase, WildFilmHistory will be a library of key wildlife films from the last 100 years.

Said Hamish MacCall, communication and marketing manager of Wildscreen, on email: "A part of the project involves interviewing prominent filmmakers. Among them are Naresh Bedi and Mike Pandey."

MacCall said it was Wildscreen's "dream to create a wildlife-film museum" when more funds were secured. The library is to be launched in 2007.

He said in its first phase the library would include around 200 films, 100 articles and about 30 oral histories.

Wildlife filmmaking is considered to have begun in the 1880s.

Oliver Gregory Pike's film about birds in 1907, which was screened for a theatre audience in London, is widely believed to be the first wildlife film in Britain.

Pandey won the Green Oscar thrice for The Last Migration - Wild Elephant Capture at Sarguja in 1994, Shores of Silence: Whale Sharks in India in 2000 and Vanishing Giants - a film on the death of elephants in captivity - in 2004. He was thrilled with Wildscreen's new project.

"It is a great move and I am sure that the project will prove to be a one point shop for hundreds of environmentalists and filmmakers. It is a pleasure to be a part of the big league and more so to be part of Wildscreen's initiative."