Premiere of Ankur at COP16 in Riyadh

Watch Ankur, an award-winning short documentary film about women in West Bengal banding together to rebuild their lives after devastating tropical cyclones, at the Restoration Pavilion in the Blue Zone at the sixteenth session of the conference of the parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) in Riyadh.

‍The screening – which is the film's premiere – follows its official selection by the G20 Global Land Initiative and will feature a short introduction by George Richards, director of Community Jameel and one of the film's producers.‍

Ankur – which means “seedling” in Bengali – tells the story of an eponymous project to empower women-led collectives in the Sundarbans to restore their homes, build new shelters, and revive their farmland and livelihoods using a combination of traditional farming practices and novel techniques.