On 12th March, VSF Netherlands and VSF Belgium will organize a screening of the “Perspectives on Pastoralism” film festival at the Wageningen University in The Netherlands.
The Perspectives on Pastoralism Film Festival is an initiative promoted by several organizations members of the Coalition of European Lobby for Eastern African pastoralism (CELEP), aiming to raise awareness on the importance of pastoralism among a wide public. On the 12th of March, students, professors and researchers in Wageningen will have the opportunity to watch 12 short movies retracting different aspects of nomadic life, from the steppes of Mongolia to the deserts of the Sahel or the Irish prairies.
The film festival contributes to deepen understanding of how diverse peoples across the world gain their livelihoods from extensive livestock production. The relationships of pastoralist people and animals and their food production systems reflect an intimate intertwining of culture, economy and ecology in harsh environments such as drylands and mountainous regions. In such environments, mobility of animals plays a key role. This is what the film festival wants to show, through films of multiple genres – spanning from documentary, narrative and experimental – made by pastoralists and/or talking about issues important to pastoralists.
A full list of the movies is available on the website of the film festival: www.pastoralistfilmfestival.com
Other future screenings are planned on 2nd July 2020 at the LandAc Conference in Utrecht (Netherlands) and 26th October 2020 at the International Grasslands and Rangelands Congress, Nairobi, Kenya.
The Perspectives on Pastoralism Film Festival is open to anyone willing to organize a screening session. For more information please contact Koen Van Troos (CELEP focal point) at: k.vantroos@vsf-belgium.org.