Films
Watch award-winning films curated from 140 countries around the globe. SIMA Academy offers you unprecedented access on any device to authentic global perspectives and visually engaging current affairs media. Plus a constantly refreshed selection of international productions from independent distributors.
-
Águilas (Eagles)
Along the southern desert border in Arizona, it is estimated that only one out of every five missing migrants are ever found. Águilas is the story of one group of searchers, the Aguilas del Desierto. Once a month these volunteers—construction workers, gardeners, domestic laborers by trade—set out...
Extras
-
Last Day Of Freedom
When Bill Babbitt realizes his brother Manny has committed a crime he agonizes over his decision- should he call the police? Last Day of Freedom, a richly animated personal narrative, tells the story of Bill’s decision to stand by his brother in the face of war, crime and capital punishment. The ...
-
Tashi and The Monk
On a remote mountaintop a brave social experiment is taking place. Former Buddhist monk Lobsang was trained under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and has created a unique community in the foothills of the Himalayas which rescues orphaned and neglected children. Five-year-old Tashi is ...
-
UnBroken
Youth turn to Side by Side when others have given up on them. Facing a variety of challenges in their lives–whether gang violence, emotional disabilities, or aging out of the foster care system–each program tailors their approach to address every client’s specific needs. Three youth find themselv...
-
UNESCO We Teach Here, Uganda
This video shows the experiences of local Ugandan and refugee teachers in a refugee camp in Uganda through professionally filmed footage and user-generated content where the teachers film their daily experiences themselves, allowing the viewer to share their daily experiences up close. Dedicated ...
-
Testimony of Ana
Anaben Pawar is an elderly tribal woman accused of witchcraft in rural India. Through Ana's story, we delve into a deep-rooted culture of patriarchy and examine one of the most monstrous attacks on women's bodies in modern India: the witch-hunt.
Director: Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda
Producers: Jan... -
Forest, Indigenous People, and Industry
Indonesia has the largest tropical rain forest on Earth. Therefore, Indonesia has long been known as the ‘lungs’ of the world. Forests has an important role in maintaining climate balance. But for indigenous peoples in Tanah Papua and the Maluku Islands, forests are not only as ‘lungs’. For them,...
-
Farmer's Footprint
This film features the trials, learnings and victories of the four generation Breitkreutz family from Stoney Creek Farm transitioning from conventional farming to regenerative agriculture in Redwood Falls, Minnesota. Using conventional methods they saw their soils degrade and their input costs ri...
-
From Gangs to Gardens
Organic gardener and vegan chef Ietef Vita is an award winning international recording artist and activist who uses Hip-Hop culture to inspire young people to connect to the earth by teaching them how to grow food, and cultivate healthy eating habits. Through his lyrics and gardens, Ietef is plan...
-
From The Same Soil
The film portrays the lives of two gay men and one transgender woman who left their home countries because of discrimination and persecution. Now in South Africa they applied for refugee status on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Despite the fact that in South Africa both national law...
-
Girls in Control: Tanzania
On any given day millions of girls and women worldwide are menstruating. In Tanzania, 75% of rural schoolgirls never used commercial sanitary pads. This is a striking story of Vanencia, a 14-year-old student. As the leader of the school Health Club she aims to break the silence on menstruation- w...
-
Men Buy Sex *Viewer Discretion Advised*
Viewer Discretion Advised
This is a documentary about paying for sex. Three men share three radically different experiences while three women lip sync to their words. This frank exploration of gender inequality uses subverted perspectives to ask: what can these stories tell us about our society,...
-
Path of Freedom
In the harsh environment of a Rhode Island men's prison, a group of fifty inmates are transforming their lives through the practice of meditation. Path of Freedom follows former inmate Fleet Maull as he visits prison to share his strategies for surviving on the inside. The film offers a rare glim...
-
Right To Identity
With one of the lowest levels of birth registration in Africa, Tanzania’s failing infrastructure and logistical challenges have left decades of backlog in birth registrations. A Tanzanian governmental agency, RITA, joined forces with some strong partners and decided to tackle the issue of birth r...
-
Dùthchas
After the Highland Clearances in the 18th and 19th centuries, where communities were expelled from their lands in favour of sheep, legislation was brought in to give people secure tenancies, called crofts, to protect them from being cleared from the land again. In 2007 the Crofting Reform Act ope...
-
Oil On Their Hands
For almost half a century, Quechua, Achuar, and Kichwa communities in Northern Peruvian have suffered extreme negative environmental, health, cultural, social, and economic impacts as a result of the operations of the oil companies, Occidental Petroleum (1971-2000) and subsequently Pluspetrol (20...
-
Homecoming
“If not us, who will protect our territories? Who will manage our territories?”
Indonesian Indigenous Youth called their fellow brothers living in the cities and finished their studies back to the community. They called it the ‘Homecoming movement.
Youth are driving new models of sustainable ru...
-
Brighter
What if you could pay for a young woman’s university education by providing her with a “gap year” job?
In Uganda, where few women are encouraged, or can afford, to attend university, Liz Forkin Bohannon decided to do something about it. She taught three young women to make strappy sandals which ...
-
Into Something Beautiful
What can a construction company do to transform personal brokenness and solve systemic injustice?
Amid their own personal and professional brokenness, Amy and Braden King discovered that most of the employees at their new construction company had a history of addiction, homelessness, and/or crim...
-
When God Roars
How can a real estate photography company in the U.S. help provide healthy livelihoods to trafficking survivors in the Philippines?
Called to work with those exploited and traumatized by human trafficking, Sam and Mindy started Regenesys to create living-wage jobs for survivors. In partnership...
-
Innocence
A group of Black and Latin women activists in San José, California drive a grassroots movement to remove police from their children's schools. Will they succeed?
Filming for this documentary was done under the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic and in the lead up to the pivotal 2020 elections... -
Cries of Our Ancestors
Award-winning filmmaker Kalyanee Mam, and conservationist Rebecca Kormos, worked with Guinee Ecologie Founder Mamadou Saliou Diallo, to film the chimpanzees of Guinea, and to speak with local community members about their relationship with the chimpanzees. They gathered myths and stories that des...
-
Harmonic Spectrum
Sean uses the Piano to navigate life on the Autistic Spectrum. As he is drawn into new musical collaborations he must learn to balance his enthusiasm and compulsive energy with understanding and compromise, redefining his perspective in the process.
Director: Austen McCowan & Will Hewitt
17 min ... -
Kanda Bode (Don't Get Whipped)
This documentary focuses on the Hamar Tribe, a semi nomadic and rural people who live along the Omo River in Southwestern Ethiopia. Preserving the traditions of their ancestors is essential to defining Hamar life. One of the most venerated of the Hamar’s ancient traditions involves the transition...
-
Goodwill Dumping
The stylised fashion documentary Goodwill Dumping brings the enormity of the industry surrounding donated secondhand clothing to light. The film showcases the journey that discarded pieces of clothing make and what kind of impact this has on local industries. Due to its globalised scale this imme...