About the Film : In a village in the Niyamgiri mountains of the Eastern Ghats in Odisha, eastern India, a heroic effort is underway: barefoot ecologist Dr. Debal Deb and his team are conserving over 1000 endangered heirloom varieties of rice in-situ, the world’s largest project of its kind. Odisha’s Eastern Ghats region is one of the world’s surviving biodiversity hotspots, with farmers and shifting cultivators, particularly from Indigenous communities like the Kondhs possessing the knowledge of growing multiple crops with their own seeds, evolved over centuries. But the village and the wider region is irreversibly changing with the coming of genetically modified Bt and herbicide-tolerant cotton seeds and associated agrochemicals, such as glyphosate. ‘Seed Stories’ takes a worm’s eye view of how the swift expansion of a chemical-intensive cotton monoculture is reshaping a geography and a people steeped in agro-ecological knowledge, and altering their attitudes towards farming, food and ecology. It invites audiences to reflect on the question, ‘What is sustainability?’

About the Director : Chitrangada Choudhury's reportage on issues of the environment and human rights has been named for multiple national and international journalism awards. She is on the Editorial Board of Article 14, an award-winning digital outlet dedicated to issues of law, justice and the constitution.

The film screening will be followed by a discussion with Prof. Shaila Seshia Galvin and Q&A with the audience.