The setting: A 90-year-old rickety stone-and-wood structure in the quaint township of Khotachiwadi, Girgaum. The cast: Septuagenarian Prema Sakhardande, a veteran Marathi theatre and film artiste. The message: Switch off!

An old lady laboriously steps out of her old-style first floor house, painstakingly locks the front door and makes her way down a creaky old wooden stairway. Mid way, she halts, remembers something. After a few moments of hesitancy, she decides to make an arduous climb back to the house, opens the door and switches off a fan she had left running.

This short and effective story on energy conservation, called The Staircase, was one of the 12-odd films from Mumbai to be nominated at the 9th CMS Vatavaran Environment and Wildlife Film Festival, Delhi, last week. Shot in just one day with minimal equipment and workforce, on a tight budget and largely in natural light, the film was an instant hit among viewers. The Staircase has been directed by documentary and ad film maker George Thomas.

“The older generation is still so meticulous about switching off lights, turning off taps and not being wasteful. Our 1.50-minute story sets out to showcase this theme,” explained Ashwini Chaudhary, the assistant director of the film. Incidentally, the film was shot in Chaudhary’s family home, a two-storey heritage structure called Chaudhury House. In the middle of several redeveloped high-rises, Chaudhury House has managed to remain untouched and has even retained its ancient Chinese mosaic flooring.

According to Narender Yadav, manager-communications of the film festival, there were a record number of entries from Maharashtra at the festival this year. “We shortlisted 106 films in all. Of these 73 were Indian and 33 were international. Interestingly, for the first time ever, 12 films were shortlisted from Mumbai itself while two were from Pune. We saw that some of the best concepts came from Mumbai.” About 25 films were from Delhi.

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