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,...

An epic feat of community transformation—that’s how the local community brought the iconic Greater One-horned Rhino back to Manas National Park. The rhino, a pivotal species in the region, was lost to poaching and habitat destruction following Assam’s tumultuous Bodoland movement in the 1980s and...

In the last two years over 25,000 young men in Georgia have become priests. But they haven’t found God; they’ve found a loophole to avoid mandatory military service. ‘War and Priest’ follows the Church of Biblical Freedom, formed by ground-breaking political party, Girchi. Armed with it’s own 7 c...

Separated by years of immigration policy, a young girl dreams of meeting her grandmother for the first time. Thanks to the bi-national cooperation of governments on both sides of the US/Mexico border, her grandmother embarks on a once-in-a-lifetime journey to reunite with her undocumented loved o...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

“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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

What About Our Future? chronicles the Sustainabiliteens, a group of young environmental activists who organized the largest strike in Vancouver's history. The film takes a unique look into the movement while the youth organize protests, pressure politicians and educate younger teens about environ...

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 ...

In the midst of Trump's immigration ban, a teenage refugee Ahmed and his sister Ruba find a home at a Cleveland school for immigrants. Will they be able to reach their dreams?

Director: Apo Bazidi
2020 | 21 min | USA
Language: English

FILMMAKER Q&A:
https://simaacademy.com/filmmaker-qa/how-far-...

UN Special Rapporteur of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples meets the Standing Rock Sioux leadership and community in March 2017 after months of protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

On the 10th anniversary of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the campaign has come to repr...

Amina is an Iraqi American refugee and Muslim. Joe is a Trump supporter who was afraid of Muslims in America — until he met Amina. The widening political division and polarization of our world have become so personal, that the very idea of civil, open-minded conversation can seem unreachable, and...

Six Japanese women offer brutally honest views on the state of the clean-up, the cover-ups and untruths since the nuclear accident in Fukushima, and how it has affected their lives, homes and families.

Director: Paul Johannessen
2012 | 27 min | Japan
Language: Japanese

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...

In International Aid Hurts Palestinian Civil Society grassroots civil society activists discuss their experiences with international aid. Frustration and anger are evident as Palestinians explain how their work is undermined by policies and procedures imposed by international donors and NGOs. Thi...

Set in the remote Alaskan Yukon Delta, Yukon Kings follows Yup'ik fisherman Ray Waska as he teaches his grandkids how to fish during the summer salmon run. With environmental and cultural forces threatening their subsistence way of life, Ray holds onto the hope that his grandsons will one day pas...