Impact Lab 2025 selection

Above and Below the Ground
by Emily Hong – Republic of Korea

In Myanmar’s first and only country-wide environmental movement, Indigenous women activists and punk rock pastors defend a sacred river from a Chinese-built mega-dam through protest, prayer, and Karaoke music videos.

Children of Honey
By Jigar Ganatra & Immanuel Musa Marc – Tanzania 

Three young friends on a quest to find the meaning of life in nature. A story told by the Hadzabe hunter-gatherers immerses us in a pivotal moment of their 50,000-year history – at a crossroads between old and new, as loss of land and alcohol addiction seeps into their once-peaceful community.

Cinderella Unbound 
by Ilinca Calugareanu – Romania, United Kingdom

In Romania’s patriarchal society, a group of relentless women fights against a justice system that harms and silences child victims of sexual abuse. Will they be able to create lasting change or will the status quo silence them too?

Dissidents
by Manon Loizeau – France

This project is confidential; as such we cannot currently publicly disclose more information. We will contact pertinent organisations and foundations to organise direct meetings with the project team.

Igualada
by Juan Mejia – Colombia

In one of Latin America’s most unequal countries, Francia Márquez – a Black Colombian rural activist – challenges the status quo with a presidential campaign that reappropriates the derogatory term “Igualada’ and inspires a nation to dream. 

In Front of Us 
by Inna Sahakyan – Armenia

A California judge finds herself on the other side of the courtroom in the most difficult case she’s ever seen — bringing a dictator accused of genocide to The Hague.

Kalari
by Maria Kaur Bedi & Satindar Singh Bedi – India, Switzerland

Kalari is enthralling young women in India. As the world’s oldest martial art, it is becoming increasingly significant in a society where violence against women is both historical and a daily reality. We follow four women on their journey towards self-empowerment.

Queer As Punk  
by Yihwen Chen – Malaisia

This project is confidential; as such we cannot currently publicly disclose more information. We will contact pertinent organisations and foundations to organise direct meetings with the project team.

The Myth of Monsters
by Beatrice Leong – Malaisia

How far will you fight to belong? After a lifetime of being misunderstood, filmmaker Beatrice faces her own camera, revealing her autism diagnosis after years of misdiagnoses, forced institutionalisation and coerced electroconvulsive treatment.

The Other Side of Silence
by Dheeraj Akolkar – India, United Kingdom

Wars don’t end when peace treaties are signed. Gerd Fleischer travels to post-war countries collecting testimonies from generations of children born of enemy Soldiers’ sexual violence. She urges authorities to create legal protections for children being born today.


Traces
by Alisa Kovalenko & Marysia Nikitiuk – Ukraine

The deep traces of trauma left within six women survivors of sexual violence and torture as a result of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine become a source of strength. As they come together, the women attempt to transform their ordeals into post-traumatic growth. 

Yurlu | Country
by Yaara Bou Melhem – Australia

Aboriginal Elder Maitland Parker is fighting to heal his homelands scarred by Australia’s very own Chernobyl – the Southern Hemisphere’s largest asbestos -contaminated site. For Maitland and his people the landscape is a living, breathing entity; when the land is sick, we are sick.

Abeer Bayazidi (Jordan) is an impact-driven storyteller with over a decade of experience in sustainability and corporate responsibility. She draws on her skills in outreach, communication, and training to support environmental and social sustainability initiatives. As the Training and Impact Director at Greener Screen, Abeer works with filmmakers, writers, and content creators to promote sustainable practices and social responsibility in the media and audiovisual industry.
In her role as a Sustainability Insight and Content Producer at The Climate Tribe, Abeer continues her commitment to environmental advocacy. As a co-founder of Common Good, she supports projects that integrate the arts with sustainability and equity. Her directorial work on Finding Oum Al Ghaith demonstrates her approach to storytelling as a means to address pressing issues and encourage dialogue in the WANA region (West Asia and North Africa) and beyond.

Prince (Austin) Nyambok II (Kenya) has a storied background mainly in Strategic Communications, Media, Arts, Entertainment and Education. Circa 2013-2018 he was the host of The Great Debaters Contest, a national TV show that aired on Citizen TV and KBC Channel 1. He was also the Main Content Creator and moderator of Great Debaters Contest; Connect Edition – a spin-off of the main show.
Currently, Nyambok is the Communications & Outreach Manager at DocA – Documentary Africa. There he’s notably been involved in the Co-design of the DocA Real Reel Impact Program (RRI) that seeks to holistically support documentary producers/filmmakers in the African continent with their Impact Campaigns. He is also the impact producer of Our Land, Our Freedom by Meena Nanji & Zippy Kimundu.
Outside of film, he is the founder of a noisy music company called MAD Royal Entertainment.

Lea Maria Strandbæk Sørensen (Denmark) est responsable de l’impact et des ateliers à Nordisk Panorama. Elle est chargée de la planification et de l’exécution des ateliers Impact et Doc Forward de Nordisk Panorama, et conseillère de développement de projets, de création de stratégies d’impact et de sensibilisation ciblées. Lea travaille également comme gestionnaire intérimaire du Forum de Nordisk Panorama pour le cofinancement des documentaires, où elle s’occupe entre autres de la mise en relation du forum et des réunions individuelles entre les responsables et les équipes de projet.