White Knight | |
---|---|
Directed by | Aarti Shrivastava |
Written by | Aarti Shrivastava |
Produced by | Hari Om Entertainment |
Cinematography | Madhav Salunkhe |
Edited by | Anjani K Singh, Siddhartha Bhakti, Vinayak Khapre, Daya Yadav |
Music by | Daniel Arlington, Tony Basumatary, Utkkarsh Dhotekar |
Release date |
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Running time | 25.30 minutes |
Country | India |
Language | English |
White Knight is an Indian documentary film directed by Aarti Shrivastava. The subject is Chewang Norphel, a 78-year-old engineer in Leh, Ladakh, who, over the last 15 years, has invented and implemented a technology that is helping provide a solution to an ecological disaster created by climate change. [1]
The film documents how Ladakh is grappling with an alarming water scarcity situation. In this high altitude desert where the melting of glaciers has been the traditional source of fresh water, a warmer planet is playing havoc with lifestyles and the ecology. With glaciers melting faster, fresh water is precious. Norphel's solution uses common sense and elementary observational science to create artificial glaciers. [2]
Melt ponds are pools of open water that form on sea ice in the warmer months of spring and summer. The ponds are also found on glacial ice and ice shelves. Ponds of melted water can also develop under the ice, which may lead to the formation of thin underwater ice layers called false bottoms.
Thwaites Glacier is an unusually broad and vast Antarctic glacier located east of Mount Murphy, on the Walgreen Coast of Marie Byrd Land. It was initially sighted by polar researchers in 1940, mapped in 1959–1966 and officially named in 1967, after the late American glaciologist Fredrik T. Thwaites. The glacier flows into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea, at surface speeds which exceed 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) per year near its grounding line. Its fastest-flowing grounded ice is centered between 50 and 100 kilometres east of Mount Murphy. Like many other parts of the cryosphere, it has been adversely affected by climate change, and provides one of the more notable examples of the retreat of glaciers since 1850.
References to climate change in popular culture have existed since the late 20th century and increased in the 21st century. Climate change, its impacts, and related human-environment interactions have been featured in nonfiction books and documentaries, but also literature, film, music, television shows and video games.
Glacier growing, artificial glaciation or glacier grafting, is a practice carried out in the Hindu Kush and Himalaya regions aimed at creating small new glaciers to increase water supply for crops and in some cases to sustain micro hydro power. In order to encourage the growth of a glacier local farmers acquire ice from naturally occurring glaciers, and carry it to high altitude areas where the ice is put inside a small cave dug out in a scree-slope. Along with the ice other ingredients such as water, salt, sawdust, wheat husks and charcoal are also placed at the site. The use of glacier grafting is an old skill of the mountain farmers of Baltistan and Gilgit, where it is used for irrigation purposes since at least the 19th century. This technique was described by Lieutenant David Lockhart Robertson Lorimer (1876–1962) in the 1920s. Allegedly glacier grafting also has been used to block mountain passes.
One Water is a 2008 documentary film directed by Sanjeev Chatterjee and Ali Habashi. The film premiered at the 2008 Miami International Film Festival on 22 February 2008.
Chewang Norphel is an Indian civil engineer from Ladakh, who has built 15 artificial glaciers. He has earned the title of Ice Man.
The Machoi Glacier is a 9 kilometer long glacier in the Himalayan Range in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, India.
Elemental is a 2012 documentary film directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Gayatri Roshan. The film was premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival on October 9, 2012, in Mill Valley, California.
Aarti Shrivastava is a national award-winning Indian documentary filmmaker and Asia 21 IPRYLI Fellow based in Mumbai.
The Ladakh International Film Festival (LIFF) is an international film festival that is held annually in Ladakh, India. Inaugurated in 2012, it is the first international film festival to be held in Ladakh. It is held in the Himalayan town of Leh, the largest town in Ladakh, at an altitude of more than 11,000 feet, making it the highest-altitude film festival in the world. A major theme of the festival is wildlife conservation. In partnership with the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust, the festival offers the Snow Leopard Trophy for the most educational or inspiring film about an endangered species.
Fire in the Blood is a 2013 documentary film by Dylan Mohan Gray depicting what it claims is the intentional obstruction of access to low-cost antiretroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS to people in Africa and other parts of the global south, driven by multinational pharmaceutical companies holding patent monopolies and various Western governments consistently supporting these companies. The film claims that the battle against what it refers to as a "genocidal blockade," which it estimates to have resulted in no less than ten to twelve million completely unnecessary deaths, was fought and won.
Prejish Prakash is an Indian film editor working primarily in Malayalam cinema. He is also a web designer and an entrepreneur. Other than feature-film editing he edited various documentaries, advertisements, Corporate videos, Film trailers etc. in his career.
Vaibhav Kaul is a Himalayan geographer, environmental scholar, photographer and painter.
3 Generations is a non-profit documentary film production company based in New York City.
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is a 2014 American documentary film produced and directed by Kip Andersen and Keegan Kuhn. The film explores the impact of animal agriculture on the environment—examining such environmental concerns as climate change, water use, deforestation, and ocean dead zones—and investigates the policies of several environmental organizations on the issue.
The Crested Butte Film Festival is a celebration of international films, held annually over four days in the last weekend of September, in Crested Butte, Colorado.
Vaishnavi Sundar is an Indian independent filmmaker and activist.
Sonam Wangchuk is an Indian engineer, innovator and education reformist. He is the founding-director of the Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh (SECMOL), which was founded in 1988 by a group of students who had been in his own words, the 'victims' of an alien education system foisted on Ladakh. He is also known for designing the SECMOL campus that runs on solar energy and uses no fossil fuels for cooking, lighting or heating.
Stanzin Dorjai is an Indian documentary filmmaker from Gya in Ladakh, India. He has won many film festival awards for his film The Shepherdess of the Glaciers.
Romi Meitei is an Indian film director, screenwriter and lyricist who works in Manipuri films. He is a recipient of several awards at film festivals organized in India and abroad, including a National Film Award.