Feb 18, 2014PRESS RELEASESmarty Plants wins Biodiversity Award!Winnipeg-based Merit Motion Pictures is proud to announce that its documentary “Smarty Plants” is the Winner of the Biodiversity Award at CMS Vatavaran International Environment and Wildlife Film Festival this year. The festival was held January 30 – February 3, 2014 in New Delhi, India.CMS VATAVARAN is an outcome of CMS' core commitment to go "beyond research" (www.cmsindia.org).The rich experience of CMS in environmental issues & developmental communication and the urge for "Beyond Research" - a commitment to perform the role of a practitioner of its own research, sowed the seeds of CMS VATAVARAN- India's only International Environment & Wildlife Film Festival and Forum. At this year’s festival, Smarty Plants competed against more than 150 films, best of biodiversity cinema, experts sessions, talks, deliberations, contemporary discourses, eco-trips, film store, music festival, organic green haat and organic food festival.Produced by Merit Jensen Carr and directed by Erna Buffie, “Smarty Plants: Uncovering the Secret World of Plant Behaviour” follows University of Alberta scientist and ecologist JC Cahill on a spectacular visual journey into the hidden lives of plants. Traveling the world, from the Great Basin Desert to the rainforests of British Columbia, Cahill meets up with a team of amazing plant scientists who are revealing an extraordinary, secret world – a world where plants behave a lot like us.“Smarty Plants” is produced by Merit Motion Pictures in association with CBC's The Nature of Things, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund, Manitoba Film & Music, the Government of Manitoba – Manitoba Film and Video Production Tax Credit and the Canadian Film and Video Production Tax Credit.