Rising Waters, Raising Rights Human Rights Through the Lens of Water

Raising Rights Poster

A Cinemata Hybrid Online–Physical Film Screening for Human Rights Day

  • Online Screening: 10–24 December 2025
  • Physical Events & Watch Parties: 10 December 2025 - Human Rights Day (Philippines+ Regional Satellite Events)

Concept / Rationale

Water shapes lives, identities, and histories across the Asia-Pacific. It sustains communities, but it can also uproot them; it connects territories, yet divides them through borders and inequities. This program uses water both as a metaphor and a lived reality to explore human rights issues across the region — from climate displacement and labor rights to social violence, identity, and resilience.

Through water, human resilience can be represented and moved in many forms, from a single teardrop, to turbulent floods, or in changing sea tides. Through this lens, the program flows through five thematic "currents," each revealing a different dimension of rights, dignity, and survival.

Each category features 5–6 short films, or 1 feature paired with 2 shorts, creating a balanced, multi-perspective screening experience.

Program Outline

1. Drifting States: Statelessness and Migration

Themes: People without citizenship, refugees, and communities forced to cross literal and political waters.

2. Sinking Grounds: Climate, Flood, and Survival

Themes: Floods, rising seas, droughts, environmental displacement

3. Tides of Silence: Bullying, Violence, and the Self

Themes: Bullying, youth trauma, mental health, identity, social exclusion.

4. Fisherfolk and Frontlines: Labor and Livelihood at Risk

Themes: Fishing rights, coastal labor, maritime conflict, community survival.

5. Ripples of Play: Everyday Resistance and Humor

Themes: Joy, creativity, and subversion as forms of resistance, community resilience

Overall Framing

These five currents form the broader stream of Rising Waters, Raising Rights, reflecting how water connects personal, environmental, political, and cultural dimensions of human rights. Adapt your own program: hosts may sequence films chronologically, thematically, or through creative juxtapositions aligned with their local context.

Hybrid Hosting & Mounting Structure

To decentralise participation and enable community-driven screenings, the program will be hosted through a network of partners including film collectives, universities, community groups, and advocacy organizations.

Hosting Model:

  • Each partner adopts one thematic category to curate an in-person or online watch party.
  • Select partners may choose to host additional discussions, Q&As, or workshops.
  • Satellite watch parties will be held across the Asia-Pacific (locations TBA).
  • All screenings connect back to the program's overarching theme of water, rights, and resilience.

Benefits of the Distributed Approach:

  • Expands accessibility across regions and audiences.
  • Encourages localized interpretation of global issues.
  • Fosters cross-sector collaboration (film × advocacy × education).
  • Builds a networked act of solidarity through shared storytelling.

Read the Watch Party Guide for more information.  

Film Availability and Screening Window

  • All selected films will be available for public viewing on Cinemata.org from 10–24 December 2025 as part of the Rising Waters, Raising Rights Human Rights Day program.
  • In-person events will be held on 10 December, with additional regional watch parties organised throughout the screening period.

About Cinemata

Cinemata is an open-source, ad-free video platform dedicated to social and environmental films from the Asia-Pacific. Launched by EngageMedia in 2021, it now hosts over more than 6,800 films contributed by filmmakers, collectives, and communities. Unlike commercial platforms, Cinemata does not sell user data; filmmakers retain full rights to their work. The platform is shaped by programmers, curators, and media activists committed to amplifying underrepresented voices.