Ignite Lasting Change with Community Film Events

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

SIMA AWARDS UPDATES:

Fresh from the announcement of our SIMA Awards 2019 in February, we’re already putting plans in place to launch SIMA Awards 2020. We will officially open submissions for social impact features, shorts and virtual reality experiences in September 2019. We look forward to reviewing the impactful submissions!

SIMA CLASSROOM UPDATES:

Designed as a fast track to global citizenship education, the online streaming platform takes students on a journey from empathy and critical thinking to action. Over 1,825 educators, 42,570 students and 170 institutions globally are already using the platform.  

Selected from the finalists and winners of the annual Social Impact Media Awards, SIMA Classroom is a global, ever-current and expansive streaming service presenting the gold standard of social-issue cinematic storytelling. It provides access to a carefully curated collection of over 165 award-winning short documentaries and Virtual Reality films with learning resources and participatory skill building lessons. The 2019 SIMA AWARDS allowed us to incorporate gems such as The Future of Iraq, Dignity with Flowers and Lives on Hold in Lebanon to bring global issues such as human rights, refugees, and social entrepreneurship to life in the classroom.

In order to keep scaling the scope and depth of our impact, we launched strategic partnerships with Qatar Foundation International and Edvant Edge Africa.

We are delighted to have Edvant Edge Africa as a SIMA Classroom partner to harness the power of the world’s best social impact storytelling in service of quality 21st-century global citizenship education in Africa. As part of this pilot program, we provide a free three-year subscription for 20 educational institutions across Africa.

This month, together with Qatar Foundation International, we launched the Arab World Spotlight Challenge and Playlist to help educators around the globe bring the Arab world into their classroom. The Arab World Spotlight (AWS) Playlist serves as a springboard for learning about the Arab world and global social issues through an authentic lens that activates empathy, critical thinking and collaboration. Curated as a window into the richness, beauty and diversity of the Arab world, the playlist shows intimate testimonies and on the ground stories that allow viewers to connect with individuals and communities often stigmatized on the basis of prejudice and to build new perspectives founded on cross-cultural understanding, respect and tolerance.

TRAVELING SERIES UPDATES:

In June, Adventure Trade Travel Association (ATTA) will screen Poverty Inc., a film that unearths an uncomfortable side of charity that can no longer ignore. From TOMs Shoes to international adoptions, from solar panels to U.S. agricultural subsidies, the film challenges each of us to ask the tough question: Could I be part of the problem?

Also taking place in June, The United States National Committee (USNC) for UN Women, Los Angeles Chapter is screening Megolonyo, the story of a Women’s Empowerment Group started by female survivors of the Northern Ugandan War in search of rehabilitation, economic stability, and emotional support, for their upcoming community event. The USNS helps promote social, political and economic equality for women and girls spanning to one hundred countries around the world.

SIMA's FISCAL SPONSORSHIP:

Fiscal sponsorship is a formal arrangement with a nonprofit organization, such as SIMA, who agrees to sponsor a project that furthers our mission, for the purpose of fundraising through grants and donations. This alternative to starting their own nonprofit allows projects to seek grants and solicit tax-deductible donations for a creative social impact project, documentary or campaign, with the oversight and endorsement of SIMA, the world’s pioneering global social impact media agency.

We have since added four projects: Opera Ritrovata - small portable opera company with a sense of humor—dedicated to promoting unjustly forgotten works of women and minorities as well as fresh reinterpretations of currently canonic pieces, Patient Orator - a project emphasizing the importance of community by bridging the gap between public and private health, between policy groups, civilians, patients and care providers, FIIS - a street action festival that mixtures music, culture, and innovation, seeking to accelerate a cultural transformation for the common good—a festival where ‘TED Talks meets Glastonbury,’ and the power of innovative ideas resonate with the social rhythm of music and arts and, lastly, Full Emotions Arts Program - a project that runs different arts, cultural and education programs that connect artists to audiences. 

SIMA RAMA UPDATES:

Because of devoted members of SIMA RAMA, who helped tackle today’s most pressing global issues through social impact cinema and their incredible support, we are now able to offer this service free of charge for all users which began this May!

We are giving audiences a barrier-free entry to experiencing social impact cinema and transforming the RAMA into the SIMA Staff Pick of the Month - streaming one doc/video at no cost to viewers through the SIMA Studios website.

In May we featured Mahdi Feifel's film, A World Not Ours, which is an intimate and humorous portrait of three generations of exile in the refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, in southern Lebanon. Based on a wealth of personal recordings, family archives, and historical footage, the film is a sensitive and illuminating study of belonging, friendship and family.

For the month of June, we’re streaming Deborah Esquenazi's Southwest of Salem, the story of "The San Antonio Four" - the nightmarish persecution of Elizabeth Ramirez, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh and Anna Vasquez - four Latina lesbians wrongfully convicted in San Antonio, Texas.

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

With warmth and gratitude from the SIMA Team.