Films

Films

Watch over 200 films curated from 140 countries around the globe, and featuring over 40 languages. 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.

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Films
  • The Gender Line

    The Gender Line is about a transgender rock star, Cidny Bullens (formerly Cindy Bullens) who once sang in Elton John’s band and had recording contracts with three major labels and two independents. Cidny is fortunate to have been both a wife and husband in the same lifetime. He reflects on his pe...

Extras

  • Is Different Crazy

    In Indonesia where 14 million people suffer from mental health disorders and shackling is still practised, this story is about how a man’s decade-long struggle with schizophrenia almost cost him his family and how he reclaimed his life with the help of Rumah Berdaya (meaning Home of Empowerment)....

  • Grounded

    In painting and dance, Marie-Hélène, a respected figure on the Canadian contemporary art scene, finds an outlet for her creativity and her resilient spirit, after losing both her legs as a child. The arrival of her daughters sparks a new sense of freedom, pushing herself to let go self-censorship...

  • Green Gold?

    As the global demand for the super food avocados has soared, Chile has become the world’s third largest exporter of avocados. But the community of Petorca, in northern Chile say drought and the insatiable appetite for avocados has brought desperate water shortages.

    This film explores the quiet...

  • Haven

    Lynda, an indigenous woman whose sons died tragically, and Max, the sole survivor of a horrific car accident, are heroin users in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, infamous as Canada’s poorest neighborhood. As participants in a radical opioid-assisted therapy program, the first of its kind in North ...

  • What Happened to Dujuan Armstrong

    When a young man mysteriously dies in a Bay Area jail, his mother begins a determined quest to find out what happened to him, but quickly runs into the opaque and powerful position of American sheriffs.This intimate, fast-paced documentary follows Barbara Doss’ search to discover the details of h...

  • Water is Life

    On the banks of Louisiana, fierce Indigenous women are ready to fight—to stop the corporate blacksnake and preserve their way of life. They are risking everything to protect Mother Earth from the predatory fossil fuel companies that seek to poison it.

    Director: Sam Vinal
    24 min | USA
    Languages: ...

  • The Atomic Tree (VR/360)

    The Atomic Tree leads you on an immersive journey through the memories held within the Yamaki pine, a 400-year-old Japanese White Pine bonsai tree that survived the Atomic blast at Hiroshima. From its birthplace in the sacred island of Miyajima and ancient cedar forests imbued with Kami spirits, ...

  • LALA (VR/360)

    In this 360° VR blend of animation and live-action video, Holocaust survivor Roman Kent shares his story of a dog in Nazi-occupied Poland who taught him a timeless lesson: that love is stronger than hate.

    Produced by USC Shoah Foundation
    Creative Director: Stephen D. Smith
    Producers: Kori Street...

  • Detroit Hives

    Detroit Hives follows Tim Paule and Nicole Lindsey, a young couple from East Detroit, who are working hard to bring diversity to the field of beekeeping and create opportunities for young Detroit natives to overcome adversity. It is estimated that Detroit has with well over 90,000 empty housing l...

  • La Casita Rosa

    La Casita Rosa is a short documentary based on the humanitarian efforts of Las Patronas, a group of Mexican women determined to help feed the countless immigrants riding on top of cargo trains heading to the U.S.

    Director: Elvin Herrera
    Producers: Elvin Herrera
    12 min | Mexico
    Languages: Spanish...

  • Justice on Wheels

    A story about a bus that delivers legal remedies to women in rural Kyrgyzstan.

    Director: Shanshan Chen, (Reporter) Adela Suliman
    Producers: Shanshan Chen
    4 min | Kyrgyzstan
    Languages: Russian
    Subtitles: English

    FILMMAKER Q&A:
    https://simaacademy.com/filmmaker-qa/justice-on-wheels/

  • Mini Moguls: Ryan's Recycling

    Meet Ryan, a nine-year-old who started his own recycling company to save our earth and seas. He started recycling at just three years old – now, he's helping tons of people all over the world get inspired to do the right thing.

    Director: Vanessa Quintero, In the Know
    Producers: Malka Media
    5 min...

  • Black Girl Poem *Viewer Discretion Advised*

    [Trigger Warning] In 'Black Girl Poem,' black women take a surrealist approach in confronting the power dynamic of sexual harassment and catcalling within the African American community. The three women towering above the city act as a chorus, symbolizing a heightened representation of resistance...

  • Not a Pet

    Every year hundreds of cheetah cubs are stolen from the wild, decimating the dwindling population of Africa's most endangered big cat. For every 5 cubs that are taken, only 1 survives. Smuggled into the Middle East to be sold as exotic pets. Investigating this illegal trade and the role social me...

  • Anthropocene: Dandora (VR/360)

    The Dandora Landfill is the largest of its kind in Kenya. It receives industrial, agricultural, commercial and medical waste, amounting to about 2,000 tonnes per day. It is estimated that more than a million people live in the vicinity of the landfill. Residents work informally, sorting scrap by ...

  • Facing The Myths

    Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people living in the Middle East and North Africa share their responses to myths and stereotypes about LGBT people in the region on a new video and special feature released today by the Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality (AFE) and Human Rights Watch....

  • Words of a Change Maker

    How do you make the world listen? Founder of the Danish NGO Plastic Change International Henrik Beha Pedersen was sick and tired of seeing plastic in the oceans and decided to do something about it!

    Director: Katrine Elvstrøm Krause & Søren Rosenørn
    2018 | 4 min
    Denmark
    Language: English

  • Home/Aamir (VR/360)

    “Home: Aamir” is the first of a series of Surround Vision 360 degree films exploring the meaning of home through the stories of refugees in the Calais “Jungle”. This first film, a collaboration between the National Theatre, Surround Vision and Room One, follows a 22-year-old man escaping the thre...

  • Songs of The Vine (VR/360)

    Shot over the span of two months in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest, ‘Songs of the Vine’ is a virtual reality documentary focusing on the healing modalities, cosmovision and culture of the Shipibo, an indigenous group best known for their mastery of ayahuasca and sacred plant medicine. By immersin...

  • Lives On Hold In Lebanon (VR/360)

    Beirut's Shatila camp was built in 1949 for 3,000 Palestinian refugees, but now hosts up to 40,000 people, including many Syrians displaced by war. Appalling conditions and bleak prospects for the future leave families longing for their lost homes. Three generations of a Palestinian family descri...

  • Refugees (VR/360)

    Refugees is a 360 documentary about the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Thousands have left their homes in search for a better future, and in their search they encounter dangerous obstacles. We went to Lesbos, Greece, where migrants take the leap from Turkey, putting their lives at risk, and capture...

  • We Are Rohingya (VR/360)

    Mohammed and his family awoke one morning to the sound of gunfire in their village in Myanmar. The father of three describes how his son Ismail went from having a relatively normal life playing soccer with his friends, to trekking through rain-drenched forests to escape Myanmar, and falling sick ...

  • Authentically Us: She Flies By Her Own Wings (VR/360)

    Shannon Scott driven by the military tenet of “Leave No One Behind,” pulls the levers of democracy urging freedom and justice for all be secured from the marbled halls of Washington D.C. to the hallowed ground of those who championed LGBTQ and transgender equality before her.

    Directors: Jesse (J...

  • Traces (VR/360)

    Traces is a cinematic virtual reality film exploring the memories of one woman living with Alzheimer’s disease. In the film, the main character Willie White, an 88-year old woman living with dementia, recounts her time as a young girl living in the fields near Mason, Tennessee. As her words trans...