In the thick of the heat and dust of the Assembly elections, the state capital will host an environmental film festival on Thursday highlighting issues impacting the ecology.

“It will be a day-long festival featuring 13 short films at Vidhan Sabha Hall in Ranchi on December 5,” said Ipsita Baishya, communications coordinator of Toxics Link, a Delhi-based NGO that works for bringing toxics related information to the public domain.

Toxics Link is organising the festival in collaboration with Lok Swar, a local organisation of Ranchi that works on environmental issues.

The fest will be supported by the Swedish Society of Nature Conservation, Baishya said.

The films will highlight a variety of issues relating to environmental hazards and conservation efforts and their running time will vary from 3 minutes to 1 hour 6 minutes.

An hour-long film by journalist Puranjoy Guha Thakurata, Inferno : Jharia's Underground Fires, will focus on how people in a part of Dhanbad district of Jharkhand have been leading a risky life for decades.

Nabikei, a film by Sri Prakash, a Ranchi based national award-winning documentary filmmaker, will show the impact of uranium mining in the American south-west. This film will be the longest one in the festival, with a running time of 1 hour and 6 minutes.

The Pungti Story by Sesino Yhoshu will portray the changes seen in a Naga hamlet that transformed itself from a slaughtering village to one preserving falcons from Siberia.

The World’s Most Famous Tiger by Subbiah Nallamuthu will narrate the story of Machli, the tigress that lived in Ranthambhore National Park, while The Birdman of Chorao by Shashank Bhosale will inform about conservationist Uday Mandrekar.

Among other films, Gyamo - Queen of the Mountains by Gautam Pandey and Doel Trivedy will inform about snow leopards, one of the most elusive and least understood big cats that mostly live in trans-Himalayan landscapes above the tree line.

“The festival will help sensitise people towards ecological issues through films,” said Toxics Link associate director Satish Sinha.

“The entry will be free and anyone interested can view the films to be screened at the festival,” said Kunal Singh, coordinator of Lok Swar, adding that their target audience would include school students, film lovers and environmental activists.