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:
SIMA 2018 is in full swing! Submissions closed on October 27th, and our amazing and dedicated pre-selection committee is busy watching and nominating Finalist films. The submissions this year are mind-blowing! With entries from over 60 countries, we can’t WAIT to share the SIMA 2018 Finalists with you in January 2018.

SIMA CLASSROOM UPDATES:
Since launching SIMA Classroom in January 2016, we now serve 172 academic institutions globally, reaching over 40,000 students in 26 countries. We currently provide SIMA Classroom for free to at least 90% of participating educators and of the 123 US schools participating at least 63% of these schools are in underserved districts.

This summer, in the wake of violent rallies, we connected with Charlottesville high schools to provide them with free access to SIMA Classroom. Many students witnessed this violence and we hope that the SIMA films and resources can play a part in opening dialogue with their educators and classmates on these complex and ever-changing issues.

We continue to grow our catalog of SIMA Classroom films and resources, including:

• New Playlist: We have recently added a Gender Equality playlist, which brings together films about women from around the world overcoming inequalities based on cultural gender norms and prejudice. Alongside the engagement model “The Artist”, this new playlist will give educators an accessible series of activities to unlock understanding and action.
• New Films: At the SIMA 2017 Awards we introduced a Virtual Reality (VR/360) category. Five of these VR/360 films are now available for schools on SIMA Classroom. Virtual Reality has been called the ultimate empathy machine. Our VR films have an immediate effect on students, instantly immersing them into a new world by and seeing through other people’s eyes.

As we look ahead to 2018, we’re focusing our efforts on expanding our global reach; and continuing to provide affordable and where possible free access to our social impact films. Your support contributes directly to educating, activating, and inspiring the next generation of leaders and changemakers through SIMA Classroom.

SIMA RAMA & TRAVELING SERIES UPDATES:
Thanks to the feedback of our members, we have made some big changes to the SIMA RAMA program! As of November, SIMA RAMA films are now available to be streamed online for an entire month. We are also hard at work on a new online streaming platform to better connect our members with award-winning impact cinema, live forums, experts, and collective actions.

This September we watched ONE DAY AFTER PEACE, where we met Robi Damelin, an Israeli mother who, in an attempt to reconcile the death of her son, journeys to South Africa to understand how the means used to resolve apartheid can be applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Robi joined us on the panel with Craig Zelizer, CEO/Founder of PCDNetwork; Melanie Cohen Greenberg, President and CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding; and John Marks, Founder and Senior Advisor of Search for Common Ground.

In October we watched IN UTERO, a cinematic rumination on what will emerge as the most provocative subject of the 21st century – the environmental impact on pregnancy and its lasting imprint on human development, human behavior, and the state of the world. We discussed the environmental impact on life in the womb in the live panel with director of IN UTERO, Kathleen Man Gyllenhaal; Kinga Orlikowska Brooks, Editor of IN UTERO; and Dr. Rebecca Shlafer, Research Director at MN Prison Doula Project.

Also in October was our second Virtual Reality Salon, hosted at Bioneers 2017 in San Francisco. Over 100 audience members experienced SIMA 2017 Best VR Experience, Best Cinematography, and Immersive Impact Jury Prize winner, NOMADS– a powerful depiction of several nomadic cultures, allowing viewers to experience the way of life of Yak Herders in the Mongolian steppes, Maasai in Kenya, and Sea Gypsies living off the coast of Borneo.

November brought us the opportunity to share PAY 2 PLAY: DEMOCRACY’S HIGH STAKES. Driven to make the world a better place for his newborn daughter, John Ennis 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. In the panel, we discussed power and democracy with the Executive Producer of PAY 2 PLAY, Molly Mosher, and Jeff Clements, President of American Promise.

“It is no longer sufficient to just become educated on issues in our new world paradigm. We know now that we must actively participate to bring the change we want to see. I'm excited to be a member of SIMA RAMA documentary club whose innovative format makes it easy to do both!”
– Milena Jankovic, SIMA RAMA Member

November has been a busy month, with two SIMA films screening at the Building Bridges Film Festival in Bahrain: SWIM TEAM (SIMA 2017 Winner of the Ethos Jury Prize), and POVERTY, INC. (SIMA 2015 Winner of the Transparency Jury Prize). SIMA Ambassador Erick Matsanza brought SIMA films to SpiceTalks, a catalytic accelerator for intense social change in Nairobi, Kenya. This year marks the 2nd annual SpiceTalks event, which started as a small conference in 2016. Participants viewed SIMA Finalist films “At Home, In Bed, and In The Streets”, “Don’t Cover It Up, Step Up”, “From The Same Soil”, and “Inner Me”.

“The world needs social change farmers and the world needs cultivators of spice but above all, the world needs those who will plant the spice in their backyards.”
– Erick Matsanza, SIMA Ambassador to Kenya

The next SIMA RAMA film opens on December 1. Join us for the entire month of December to see TOMORROW WE DISAPPEAR, which chronicles the last days of Kathputli, the mysterious hand-built artist colony first discovered in Salman Rushdie's iconic Midnight Children. Hidden in the alleyways of New Delhi, a community of magicians, acrobats and puppeteers approach their looming eviction to make way for a modern skyscraper. Bound together by tradition and impending gentrification, this captivating film allows us to experience a culture’s magic and wonder before it’s gone.

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.