Cinemata Editorial Policy

Cinemata is a platform for social and environmental films about the Asia-Pacific. Cinemata highlights essential yet underheard stories, increasing filmmakers’ reach, engagement, and impact, helping audiences discover thought-provoking videos. 

By being part of Cinemata, you are joining an Asia-Pacific community of socially engaged filmmakers, contributing to a unique collection of important and high-quality stories.

Cinemata welcomes contributions in a variety of styles and genres, including documentary, fiction, animation, experimental, and so on.

In addition, Cinemata editors regularly feature great films on the site and promote them through our various channels. We also highlight key contributors through our Featured Filmmaker series.

Submissions must meet the following criteria: 

• focuses on social and environmental issues in the Asia-Pacific
• must have undergone a minimum level of editing (we will not be accepting raw footage or clips)
• includes a synopsis and other basic information in the submission
• adheres to this Editorial Policy and the Terms of Service

In addition, we won’t be accepting videos that

• promote sexism, racism, homophobia, or any form of prejudice or discrimination
• violate intellectual property rights
• advertise products or services
• promote divisiveness 
• violate personal privacy
• are sympathetic yet discerning of social advocacy
• include exaggeration, overgeneralisation, non-sequiturs, and other logical fallacies
• include misinformation, disinformation, or malinformation
• are primarily designed to promote the interests of a particular religion or religious group, government, or for-profit corporation
• does not respect the dignity and humanity of the subjects in the film

More than just curating videos based on the above criteria, we also feature and promote videos that:

• are well-produced, innovative, engaging, and entertaining
• are produced by the communities directly affected by the video, or at the very least include their perspectives
• are connected to civil society and other social actors
• aim to create change, or are solutions driven
• promote critical thinking, questions, and conversations, as well as respect freedom of expression, differing opinions, and viewpoints
• are open-minded and explore innovative ideas and approaches to problems
• promote underheard voices and perspectives 

Our Process

As the site managers, the EngageMedia editorial team makes decisions regarding the publishing of videos. We reference this policy in making those decisions. 

After uploading your video, the Cinemata moderators will review your submission, before deciding whether to publish it based on the criteria in this policy. If you disagree with a decision, you can contact the editors through this form and we will review your case accordingly. The decision after the review of the editors is final.

Further conditions can be found in our Terms of Service.

Open Content

Cinemata aims to make a positive contribution to debate, dialogue, and advocacy on important social issues. That means we want as many people as possible to see the great films on the site. 

To do that, Cinemata uses Creative Commons. Creative Commons allows people to freely share content for non-profit purposes, or even for commercial purposes if the filmmaker has selected that option. This helps advocates, educators, and the people they serve have access to a treasure trove of important knowledge that can create a better world.

When you publish your work, you will be asked to specify a Creative Commons license. If you are a watcher, you can find information on the Creative Commons license at the bottom of every video. You can read more on our open content policy and options here.