During the largest food crisis in a century, a group of college students step up to help those facing hunger. Their small local effort inspires hope nationally and motivates 600+ students to drop everything to feed millions of families.

Within months, the project scales larger than anyone could ...

How does a veteran teacher help prepare the first batch of pandemic online-learning students to sit for the SPM exams (Malaysian Certificate of Education) in the under resourced Perimbun Secondary School? Teacher Rusmiyana and other veteran teachers find strength to learn and teach virtually, and...

Life and survival is incredibly difficult in the bleak Cerro Rico mining district in Potosi, Bolivia. This is true for the men risking their lives going down into the mine shafts looking for silver ore, but especially so for the women, who are viewed by the men as fair game.

This powerful and br...

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 ...

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...

Water & Coltan deals with the consequences of mining on landscape and communities in West Germany and DR Congo. While WATER sketches posthuman near-future scenarios for the former coal mining Ruhr area, COLTAN transports its audience directly to the places of exchange and work of women in artisan...

There’s a crisis underground. From the mines of Southern Africa, a river of one of humanity’s oldest diseases is flowing out across the world. Mine workers in sub-Saharan Africa have the highest rates of tuberculosis in the world, with more than 760,000 new cases per year connected to the mining ...

Torn from her family, her paintings, and her beloved Calcutta after the partition of India, artist Surayia Rahman finds a new life in Bangladesh teaching marginalized mothers to embroider her story-telling designs. An inspirational example of the power of art and the impact of empowering women a...

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...

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...

In the foothills of Nepal, extreme deforestation has pushed many rural communities onto marginal lands. In “Scaling the Mountain,” villagers in Jogimara and Naubise find that combining conservation efforts with reproductive health services helps them support their families and their communities m...

Rain Harvests, exposes the harsh reality of an indigenous community in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. Climate change has caused droughts, the rainy season comes only once a year and getting water has become a daily challenge. Without fail, the women of this community must make nearly 5 trips daily to ...

Esperanza and Teodula are calling for justice in rural Peru, they are part of 300,000 people sterilised without consent more than 18 years ago. The Quipu Project is their phone line that allows the affected across the country to share their shocking testimonies and ensure those responsible are pu...

[Trigger Warning] Perma gold mine, Benin. Some dream to find something, others realized there was nothing to be found. Some dig relentlessly hoping to become rich, others died in the process. And a few of them say that here, nobody dies.

Director & Producer: Simon Panay
2016 | 24 Min
Benin
Langu...

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...

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...

Kayayo means “girl-carrier” in the Ga language.
In the capital of Ghana, 10,000 girls from the ages of 6 work as real life shopping baskets - called Kayayo. This documentary is about Bamunu, an 8-year old girl who hasn’t seen her family since she was sent away from home two years ago to work as a...

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/

This short film offers a portrait of the Isle de Jean Charles, a tiny island deep in the bayou’s of Southern Louisiana. The film explores the changes taking place on the island through the lives of two residents whose families are facing a future where rising seas, coastal erosion and storms are ...

Of the 30,000 humanitarian organizations operating in Nepal, a tiny Nepalese NGO accomplishes what naysayers said could not be done. From award-winning humanitarian journalist Debi Lang comes Hearts In The Himalayas, a documentary about the extraordinary efforts of Himalayan HealthCare. Using the...

Pristine nature, widespread school campuses, Institute for visually challenged, a health center, an artificial limb center, a neatly built food mess, spacious dorms, open playground and more - well this is how HEAL PARADISE looks like. No one would believe this to be an orphanage when they enter ...

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 ...

Hany is a 20-year-old Syrian refugee from Homs who lives with his family in a small-tented settlement in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. Back in Syria, Hany was at university studying to be a communications engineer, but he was unable to complete his studies. In Lebanon, he doesn’t have the fees to st...