Day 13 #16DaysOfActivism 2023

Join us for #16DaysOfActivism from across the Parallel Lives Network.

I’ll be interviewing network members about their particular take on activism and what it means to their cause.

The programme runs from Saturday 25th November – International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women – through to Human Rights Day on Sunday 10th December.

For Day 13 I’m focusing on documentary film activism. I’ve detailed below information about the ongoing success of the SDG FilmFest, the DocXplorers Productions unit of the Documentary Media Centre and Doc Hub West Africa.

Today I’ll also be giving a short talk to Film & TV students at Leicester College and will be reviewing their documentary subject choices and discussing the power of film activism.

The SDGFilmfest was formed by London School of Public Relations, Indonesia (LSPR) and DMU in March 2018. They recognised the sheer scope and importance of global challenges such as equality, the environment, human and civil rights, and the need to raise awareness of these issues within Developing Nations and the West to facilitate their achievement.

SDGFilmfest was initially funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund and by LSPR, and as the project has developed, the film festival has expanded to cover additional territories as part of its wider mission and reach. Future festivals are anticipated to take place in Malaysia, China, Thailand, Nigeria, and India over the next five years.

In 2023, I was again delighted to sponsor the SDG FilmFest Documentary Media Centre Showcase Award.

The Winner from AUPP Cambodia was Mongleak Boramey KHOV. You can watch my interview with Boramey below just after she won.

The Documentary Media Centre has a documentary filmmaking unit called DocXplorers Productions.

Here are a few films to date:

Doc Hub West Africa 

We have a project in Nigeria in partnership with filmmaker Cletus Clement, Director of Moreview Productions called Doc Hub West Africa.

The Doc Hub West Africa project has a regional office in Lagos and is busy developing a network of documentarians across the region to support existing and new documentary media creation.

Visit the website – www.dochubwestafrica.org

Cletus currently has a documentary film in pre-production called We Can Save Us that looks at climate change & global warming from the local fishermen’s perspective. A crowdfunding campaign is under development.

Also, I recorded an interview with the Esther Charm Club team in Nigeria – we were following up on the ‘Train the Trainer’ Period Poverty session delivered online, earlier in the year, by Nkoyo Lynn and myself. As with the interview on Day 12, where Philomena Osagie and I spoke with Emmanual Edet of CYEN in Nigeria, it appears that the sustainability of period projects is a massive area needing our help, especially in educational settings. I hope we can move ahead rapidly in early 2024 and that it leads to a visit; it would be great to visit Nigeria again after all these years.