In Rio de Janeiro an engineer fights for a sustainable future with spirited ideas and an unconventional source of energy - made from sewage.

Director: Eduardo Hunter Moura

2012 | 4 min
Brazil
Language: Portuguese
Subtitles: English

FILMMAKER Q&A:
https://simaacademy.com/filmmaker-qa/this-film...

Life can be difficult for children living in the creative, but sometimes volatile, inner-city neighborhoods of Kingston, Jamaica. If an adolescent is a victim of a crime and has to go to court, the case could fall apart because the child is too frightened to testify. This is why development group...

Students from Washington State University visit the prison at Coyote Ridge in order to participate in a debate about gun control. The rest of the participants are the debate club members from the prison – a group of inmates that have been transformed and inspired by their new contact with educati...

The Story of Stuff is a fast paced, fact-filled look at the often hidden underside of today’s globalized systems of production and consumption. It calls on viewers to help build a more sustainable, healthy and fair system.

Director: Louis Fox
2013 | 21 min
USA

The film follows three innovative social business ideas from students in Africa to take on major challenges faced by their continent. As they compete with hundreds of projects from around the world, one project starts to demonstrate that it just might have what it takes to make it all the way; a ...

Rwanda experienced a violent civil war between its two main ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi, that killed around 1 million citizens in 1994. Militant Hutu left the country in a state of poverty after using machetes to maim, rape, and murder civilians. Twenty years later, survivors of the gen...

Indigenous Harakmbut leaders lead journey to rediscover ancient sacred site to connect with their cultural past and protect their future.

Director: Paul Redman
Producer: Tim Lewis

2014 | 9 min
Latin America | Peru
Languages: Spanish
Subtitles: Portuguese, English, Indonesian, Spanish

When doctors told Karen Aiach there was no cure for her daughter’s brain disease, she took matters into her own hands. With no scientific background, she created a gene therapy business that can fix the faulty genes in patients like her daughter. Now she’s racing against the clock to extend her d...

The Poll Dance is part of “We the Voters: 20 Films for the People” which is a nonpartisan digital slate of 20 short films designed to inform, inspire and activate voters nationwide with fresh perspectives on the subjects of democracy, elections and governance in the lead up to the 2016 elections....

The Mauritania Railway is a 704-kilometer line linking the iron-mining center of Zouerat with the port of Nouadhibou. Atop a hopper car, we journey through vast Saharan landscapes with the people who rely on the train for their survival.

Director: Macgregor
Producer: Macgregor
2017 | Spain
Langu...

The Mahoyo Project is a documentary that follows Mahoyo, a Swedish creative trio as they embark on a cultural exchange – collaborating with local artists in Johannesburg, South Africa. Together they challenge stereotypes and break down normative barriers surrounding race, ethnicity, gender and se...

Kathleen is a hairdresser. Always has been, always will be. Even at 83 she is still doing hair, just not in the way you would expect. Kathleen's work is special—for the last 31 years, she has done the hair of the terminally ill in palliative care. In this short, poetic documentary, Kathleen refle...

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...

One in six children today are living in war zones, in this film we meet three of them. The Future of Iraq is a poetic documentary about the future generation of Iraq facing their future while trying to cope with their war experiences.

Directors: Thee Yezen Al-Obaide, Mats Muri
Producer: Ingvil G...

Being Black Is No Crime is the fourth episode of the web-series "The Conscious Hood" documenting social issues crucial to the residents of São Paulo's Heliópolis, the second largest urban slum in Latin America. Directed by videomaker Katherine Jinyi Li and filmed during her youth journalism works...

Rashid Aslam’s life suffers a complete transformation after his father’s death. From professional gangster, he turns into a savior of lives. The Boxing Project tells the story of Rashid Aslam and his colleague Yasmin Sheikh, and how they try to have a positive influence on the lives of young kids...

A photojournalist, during lockdown in Cape Town, documents a strange and conflicted society and discovers his own sense of morality during a time of great hardship.

Director: Jasyn Howes
Producers: Jasyn Howes and Anna Telford
2020 | 16 min
Cape Town
Language: English

FILMMAKER Q&A:
https://sim...

The Youth to Youth Fund (Y2YF) component of the International Labor Organization- Youth Entrepreneurship Facility (ILO-YEF) gives youth a voice to design and implement innovative solutions to employment challenges. It is a competitive grant scheme, which offers local youth-led organizations the m...

“I’ve been here about two years, and it feels like twenty have passed.” Among a group of children surviving on the streets of Athens is Sayid, a twelve-year old boy, who works all day selling sunflower seeds in the city’s suburban parks. He wants to leave for Northern Europe to go to school and t...

In Stories From The Field we see both the challenges and innovations for grassroots development programs and resource-poor farmers in Bangladesh. Meet farmers introducing a unique and sustainable seed selection method that empowers women and could impact global food security.

Director: Daniela K...

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...

So You Think You Can Vote is part of “We the Voters: 20 Films for the People” which is a nonpartisan digital slate of 20 short films designed to inform, inspire and activate voters nationwide with fresh perspectives on the subjects of democracy, elections, and governance in the lead up to the 201...

Adiela Jinet Mera Paz, a leader of the Siona people, has taken up the effort to remove mines from the tribe's ancestral land, following decades of armed conflict that has left them facing extinction.

Director: Tom Laffay
Producer: Emily Wright
2021 | 10 min | Colombia
Language: Spanish
Subtitle...

Since Monsanto began selling their patented "Roundup Ready" genetically modified (GM) seeds they have threatened to sue hundreds of farmers for patent infringement. Their heavy-handed investigations and ruthless prosecutions have been a relentless assault on the foundations of farming practices a...