Blog
EngageMedia is providing extended impact campaign support to four filmmakers from across two editions of Tech Tales Youth. Following a competitive selection process, these filmmakers—from the Philippines and Thailand edition (2023-2024) and the Bangladesh and Malaysia edition (2024-2025)—have each been awarded an additional USD 1,000 to deepen their community engagement and digital rights advocacy work.
'Mapping the Currents: A Manual for Community-Centered Cinema' is a practical, community-rooted resource developed from the experiences of Cinemata Currents 2025. It brings together curatorial reflections, case studies, and tools to support organizers, film collectives, and civil society groups in harnessing the power of film to foster civic dialogue, regional solidarity, and grassroots storytelling.
After four years of pioneering privacy-respecting video advocacy in the Asia-Pacific, Cinemata is launching its biggest leap yet: the full open-source release of CinemataCMS 2.0. Join us on July 31, 2025 at 5:00 PM Manila time for the official online launch featuring live demos, partner stories, and a walkthrough of new features.
Carrying the personal and collective experience of the internet shutdown in Bangladesh, Taosin Md. Bahadurshah Zafar went on to create The Black Kite, a film produced under EngageMedia’s Tech Tales Youth film collection and mentorship program.
Hai Anis, by Azura Nasron, is not just a film. It is a warning. A refusal to look away. A confrontation with a truth too many refuse to acknowledge: that grooming does not begin with violence—it begins with kindness.
Cinemata Currents 2025 gathered filmmakers, activists, and communities across Southeast Asia in a week-long hybrid film festival exploring how minor cinema can defend and reimagine civic spaces. This post-festival reflection captures key insights, highlights from curators and organizers, and what lies ahead as Cinemata continues to grow as a platform for regional connection and narrative resistance.
Ishtiyak Ahmed Zihad, a young filmmaker based in Bangladesh, captured the chaos and uncertainty of the July uprising in Bangladesh in his short film “Whispers of the Ink”. A Film and Media Studies
Cinemata Currents 2025 reimagines the virtual film festival as a civic space that resists borders, centers marginalized voices, and fosters collective meaning-making. Curated by the inaugural batch of Cinemata Community Curators in Residence, the program brings together Southeast Asian films that confront repression, displacement, and erasure through the lens of minor cinema.
In this Cinemata Features article, filmmaker and human rights campaigner Aghniadi reflects on memory, intergenerational understanding, and the use of film and animation to surface difficult histories. Aghniadi is part of the inaugural Cinemata Community Curator Residency Program.