Ignite Lasting Change with Community Film Events

Thank you for your continued support of SIMA! We’re excited to share our most recent updates with you.

SIMA AWARDS UPDATES:

This February the SIMA team was excited and honored to announce the winners for SIMA 2018. From 49 finalists, SIMA selected 18 winners and 9 jury prize recipients for the 6th Annual International Social Impact Media Awards. This year’s films place the camera in the hands of unexpected heroes.

“SIMA 2018 Winners allow us to witness the most crucial global challenges and opportunities of our time. With breathtaking authenticity they offer a fierce understanding of what it means to be human and participate in this global movement called humanity.”

- Daniela Kon, SIMA Founder and Executive Director

See the SIMA 2018 Winners here.

SIMA CLASSROOM UPDATES:

SIMA Classroom’s reach has continued to grow and we now serve 169 schools and organizations reaching over 41,000 students in 26 countries. Thanks to your support we have been able to continue providing SIMA Classroom for free to at least 90% of participating educators, new members of our community include: a learning center in Cambodia; public schools in Los Angeles; and an english language class in Morocco.

SIMA Classroom films are a springboard for bringing knowledge and inspiring students to take action. Here’s one student’s reaction to watching SIMA films:

“He said he would’ve never watched these docs on his own. Now that he’s seen films from around the world, he’s more receptive to what else he can learn and wants to be more open with his viewing choices.”

We are always developing new resources on SIMA Classroom to bring global citizenship education to more students. Here are some of the highlights:

• Playlists: Our Playlists are curated film collections addressing a range of global citizenship education themes. We’ve curated new dedicated Playlists for these topics: Gender Equality; VR for Change; and Immigration.
• Virtual Exchange: We’re collaborating with an International Film Club to pilot virtual exchange based on SIMA documentaries. The Club connects classes  from around the world, including Israel, Morocco and the USA, to watch the documentary SUNFLOWER SEEDS and then work together on collaborative activities.

SIMA Classroom films are selected from the finalists and winners of the annual international Social Impact Media Awards. In the coming weeks we will be adding the SIMA 2018 finalists and winners to the SIMA Classroom film collection. We’re excited to see the reaction of educators and students to this new batch of social impact films.

TRAVELING SERIES UPDATES:

This January was the annual SIMA Cambodia event, where audiences saw SIMA Finalist Films, SOUTHWEST OF SALEM, DISTRICT ZERO, THEY WILL HAVE TO KILL US FIRST, SWIM TEAM, UNTOUCHABLE, THE SEVENTH FIRE, IN UTERO, and LAST DAY OF FREEDOM.

On February 9th, SIMA Screening Partner The Skirball Center welcomed almost 200 ninth through twelfth grade students, along with their teachers and chaperones, for a Short Film & Dialogue Program. SIMA provided three documentaries which furnished the program’s theme of Empowerment & Self-Expression, focusing on issues of gender equity and the use of art as both a creative outlet and an avenue for positive change. A NEW PATH, GIRLS LIKE US, and THE MAHOYO PROJECT profile women and girls from around the world: from a fashion collective who journey from Stockholm to Johannesburg, to a rugby player in Mumbai, to a computer coder in Tanzania, who are standing up for their rights, expressing themselves, and helping to improve the lives of those around them.

“Based on our interactions with students after viewing the documentaries, it was evident that the content, style, and subjects of the films really resonated with the high schoolers."   - Susan Larson, Skirball Cultural Center Senior Educator, School & Performance Programs 

 Here is a sampling of their responses to the films:

•         “She [a subject of one of the films] kept pursuing her dreams, and let her daughter do what she wants, what society says."
•         “She [a subject of one of the films] got to have her own identity and be her own self.”
•         “The film reminded me of the diverse culture, like we have in LA, even though it was in South Africa.”
•         “I appreciated the chain reaction of mentorship.”
•         “The only way we can make change is by making it ourselves.”

SIMA RAMA UPDATES:

This November we watched PAY 2 PLAY: DEMOCRACY’S HIGH STAKES where filmmaker John Ennis, driven to make the world a better place for his newborn daughter,  looks for ways out of our system of pay-to-play politics. Along the way, he journeys through high drama on the Ohio campaign trail, uncovers the secret history of the game Monopoly, and explores the underworld of L.A. street art on a humorous odyssey that reveals how much of a difference one person can make. On the live panel we heard from Holly Mosher, Executive Producer of PAY2PLAY Jeff Clements, President of American Promise, and Scott Swenson, Vice President for Communications, Common Cause.

This December we watched TOMORROW WE DISAPPEAR, a stunning tribute to fading artistry and the tenacity of tradition. The film spotlights the Kathputli artist colony in New Delhi, Described as India’s “tinsel slum,” which was home to over 1,500 families of puppeteers, acrobats, painters and magicians. That all changes, however, when the government sells the land to private developers, and traditional life is set to be razed for the city’s first skyscraper. Where outsiders see the slum’s rancid water and shacks, debut filmmakers Adam Weber and Jimmy Goldblum find stunning colors in death-defying performances and leads the audience to wonder if the artists’ resolve to preserve their culture will overcome the push for progress. Adam Weber, Co-Director of Tomorrow We Disappear joined us on the panel, along with Naveen Chaubal, Editor of Tomorrow We Disappear, Amit Kumar and Himshi Singh, researchers for the National Alliance of People’s Movements.

In January we watched FUTURE MY LOVE, a unique love story challenging our collective and personal utopias in search of freedom. At the brink of losing the idealistic love of her life, filmmaker Maja Borg takes us on a poetic road trip through the financial collapse, exploring a radically different economic and social model proposed by 95-year-old futurist Jacque Fresco. Carefully weaving a texture of archive footage, black and white Super 8 lm, and color HD, Borg poignantly depicts the universal struggle between our heads and hearts in times of radical change. Borg joined us on the live panel for a stimulating discussion about how much responsibility we are ready to take for our society along with Co-Founder of The Venus Project Roxanne Meadows and Theofilos Chaldezos, Volunteer for The Venus Project.

We are currently streaming A RIVER CHANGES COURSE, which captures the stories of three young Cambodians struggling to maintain their traditional way of life while the modern world closes in around them. The once abundant forests and plentiful rivers have fallen victim to land grabbing, deforestation, and dwindling fish stock that rural and indigenous communities heavily depend on to survive. On the panel, director of the film Kalyanee Mam mediated a compelling discussion about environmental justice with Kimry Mot, local grassroots environmentalist for Mother Nature Cambodia and Srey Neang Krech, founder of Eco-Life Cambodia.

Join us for March SIMA RAMA to watch A WORLD NOT OURS, a passionate, bittersweet account of one family's multi-generational experience living as permanent refugees. Now a Danish resident, director Mahdi Fleifel grew up in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, established in 1948 as a temporary refuge for exiled Palestinians. Today, the camp houses 70,000 people and is the hometown of generations of Palestinians. The filmmaker's childhood memories are surprisingly warm and humorous, a testament to the resilience of the community. Yet his yearly visits reveal the increasing desperation of family and friends who remain trapped in psychological as well as political limbo.

As always, thank you for your invaluable contributions to helping us scale social impact through visual storytelling worldwide.

With warmth and gratitude from all of us at SIMA.