Bangkok, or Krung Thep, “The City of Angels”, is the capital of Thailand and home to more than 10 million people. The city is a composite of temples, factories, cultural sites, residences and shops. Emerging from political unrest in the 1990s and early 2010s, Bangkok has become a popular destination in its own right; gone are the days when travelers viewed the city as a simple pitstop on the way to Thailand’s beautiful beaches and islands. Escaping “from the typical travel videos that are usually made about Bangkok,” director and scriptwriter Jiajie Yu, based in Barcelona and Madrid, provides a glimpse into the everyday lives of Bangkok’s residents. He showcases “Bangkok in a cinematographic way,” introducing us to the quotidien and silent moments of a city that is usually portrayed as teeming with bright lights and action. Through “faces, alleys, sounds, and music,” Yu creates a subtle yet mesmerizing depiction of Bangkok.
Video: India’s Snake-Catching Business Through the Eyes of a Teen
Varanasi is over 5,000 years old and one of the holiest cities in India. Like the rest of the country, however, Varanasi is inundated with venomous snakes which often infest houses and endanger the population. The people hired to catch these snakes are often under-educated and suffer from a low-income, forced to turn to a dangerous job to make ends meet.
This mini-documentary follows Ali, a 16 year-old boy who is one of the best snake catchers in the city. His work takes him all over the city and through meetings with tourists, police, and people from all walks of life, yet the most important people are his family, who he supports by risking his life every day.
Heartwarming Video Tracks Down a Long-Lost Photograph Across Cultures
Photography has played a large part in Chinese culture, adding a unique facet to memory documentation that is not often known to most outsiders. One vintage photo with an incredible back story exemplifies this. This mini documentary tells the tale of this photo through Chinese amateur photographer Xu Zhen and French photo archivist Thomas Sauvin; these two men helped create and preserve a timeless piece of history. This video is heartwarming, eye-opening and will change your view about Chinese photography and culture.
Peru and Bolivia: A Short Film Capturing the Beauty of the Mountains
High in the Andes mountains, the people of Peru and Bolivia inhabit one of the most unique landscapes in the world. From rainforests to rocky slopes, towns and cities coexist with the wildlife and the natural topography in a way that seems as though they were created by nature as well as human innovation.
The people living in these cities blend historical traditions with the technological advancements of the modern age— retaining the beauty of their culture, dress, and craftsmanship and passing it down to the next generation. This video, directed and edited by Baptiste Lanne, highlights the beauty of both Peru and Bolivia’s varied climate, geography, and people, illustrating the complex balance of humanity and nature. The breathtaking scenes are interspersed with shots of people’s daily lives; both are equally beautiful.
Disaster in the Delta: Workers Accused of Profiting from Oil Spills in Nigeria
A new documentary reports that employees of Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary are encouraging attacks on pipelines to pocket funds intended for environmental cleanup.
A man walks alongside land tainted by an oil spill near Kegbara Dere, Nigeria. Friends of the Earth International. CC BY-SA 2.0
As the largest oil producer in Africa, Nigeria has long struggled to balance the demands of multinational corporations with the needs of its own people. The country provides a clear example of the resource curse, as the government turns a blind eye toward endemic corruption in the oil and gas industries. The Niger Delta, home of Nigeria’s oil reserves, has become a land of lawlessness and environmental catastrophe with no clear end in sight.
For decades, Royal Dutch Shell has been in the crosshairs of both environmental and human rights activists over its role in the Niger Delta. Now, the Anglo-Dutch oil company is facing claims that its employees deliberately sabotaged its own pipelines to profit from environmental cleanup funds.
In a documentary released on Dec. 10, Dutch television program Zembla and environmental group Milieudefensie teamed up to investigate claims of malpractice by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC). This group is a joint venture between the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, France’s Total, Italy’s Eni and Shell, which runs all operations.
Research focused on the village of Ikarama, where there have been 30 reported oil spills in the last 13 years alone. The region surrounding the community has become so polluted that agriculture and fishing barely yield any income for locals. Frustration with oil companies has mounted, leading some residents to vandalize pipelines to channel their frustration.
Per the report, Royal Dutch Shell’s employees saw an opening. They began to encourage local youths to sabotage pipelines so they could receive funds necessary for environmental cleanup. Workers for the oil titan received vast sums of money for “eco-friendly” measures, and members of the Ikarama community were hired to restore the land.
The SPDC denies responsibility for the oil leaks, instead blaming local criminals and gangs. The group said in a statement that, “As of now, we are not aware of any staff or contractor having been involved in acts causing oil spills in the Niger Delta.” The SPDC further claimed that it investigates all credible reports of misconduct and addresses situations as needed.
A sign points out Shell’s Oloibiri well, the first drilled in West Africa. Rhys Thom. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
In the eyes of Cees van Dam, a professor of international business and human rights at the University of Rotterdam, the accusations are credible. “In the Netherlands,” he notes, “this would certainly be considered a criminal offense. Intentional destruction of property, intentional environmental pollution, these are serious issues that no single company would accept from its employees.”
Moreover, employees of the SPDC and residents of Ikarama attest to the claims addressed in the documentary. Saboteurs insist that they vandalize the pipelines “out of hunger” while a former Shell security guard said that supervisors and employees “split the money from the cleanup.”
Making matters worse, the former security guard said that “the recovery department from Shell sabotages the pipelines. If the cleanup will take seven months, they’ll stop after only three months.” In other words, the land remains in disarray even after remediation measures conclude.
In the documentary, Zembla claims that local employees and villagers were far from the only ones aware of the scheme. The SPDC, the Nigerian police and the Dutch embassy in Abuja also received word of the process from concerned locals. Then Dutch ambassador Robert Petri even visited Ikarama in 2018 and pledged to “take what is happening here … and we will share our experiences and information with both Shell and the government.” No further investigations have occurred.
As such, the process of intentional environmental degradation continues. As the alleged scheme moves into the spotlight, there is an opportunity for corruption in the Niger Delta to be extinguished. The region’s troubled past and present are intrinsically tied to the oil industry, but hope remains that a more transparent future may be just around the corner.
Stephen Kenney
Stephen is a Journalism and Political Science double major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He enjoys sharing his passion for geography with others by writing compelling stories from across the globe. In his free time, Stephen enjoys reading, long-distance running and rooting for the Tar Heels.
7 Documentaries to Cure Your Wanderlust
Travel restrictions got you down? Try escaping with these global documentaries, guaranteed to soothe your cabin fever. Visit Mount Everest, Bhutan, Greenland, North Macedonia, Israel and more…
Read MoreWander in Turkey
Filmmaker Lee Hang Gab travels through Turkey and documents the beauty of the country. This short film shows Turkey's natural beauty in the mountains and unique culture in the cities. The majority of the film was shot in Istanbul and Cappadocia. The filmmaker was fascinated by Turkish culture and the natural scenery. He felt that there is a variety of cultural sensibility from Asia and Europe.
KENYA: The Village Where Men Are Banned
47 women and 200 children live in Umoja Women’s Village in northern Kenya—a community founded in response to violence against women, forced marriage, rape and female genital mutilation (FGM).
Read MoreGO Georgia // For the People
From nomadic sheep herders to the best night clubs in the world, Georgia is a country with a widening gap between the young and old and their ideas for the future direction of Georgia.
NOMO Films worked as a two man crew on this shoot with lot's and lot's of help from the people of Georgia. So helpful and friendly!
The country of Georgia became independent in 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved. Since then, the Georgian people have been divided both culturally and politically. NOMO films traveled to Georgia to document the widening gap between the younger and older generations and their ideas for the future directions of Georgia.
7 Social-Action Documentaries Available Now on Netflix
These films will inspire you to make a difference.
Netflix Logo. Photo by Bago Games CC 2.0
Netflix is known for their new original television series, as well as old favorites. But Netflix also has an excellent collection of documentaries. Here are seven documentaries featured on Netflix that will inspire you to do more good.
This six, one-hour-long episode series exposes con-artists, cheaters, and schemers who are motivated by greed. Episodes focus on topics from Donald Trump’s shady business empire to a car company who cheats on emissions tests to save money. Through firsthand accounts with perpetrators and the victims, the he docu-series aims to expose the corruption in our economy.
2. Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things
Minimalism sheds light on the way our society rapidly consumes, and how this consumption is dangerous to our mental health and our environment. This documentary delves into the lives of people who have gotten rid of their excess belongings, and committed to a life of minimalism.
What the Health exposes the corruption in the healthcare industry as a result of the government and big business. The film wants us to ask why healthcare costs so much and is so inaccessible, costing people their lives.
4. Rotten
This six part documentary series aims to make the public aware of the crisis in the global food industry. The film encourages people to pay more attention to the source of the food they buy as they might have been frozen multiple times, or contain many additives. Since food has become treated like a commodity, fraud has increased and farming has decreased.
5. Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons
Investigative journalists voluntarily become inmates the worlds’ brutalist prisons in order to expose the poor conditions that prisoners face. One of the journalists served years in prison for a crime that he did not commit, so the docuseries is even more emotionally charged.
The White Helmets follows the first responders who rescue people from the rubble after bombings in Syria. The Academy Award nominated documentary short shows real life heroes, who are guided by their motto that “To save a life is to save all of humanity.”
This Academy Award winning documentary short about how women in India achieve financial independence, and counter stigma about menstruation, by creating low-costs sanitary napkins on a machine in their village.
These documentaries and documentary series come in all lengths, and span a range of topics. They are guaranteed to educate and inspire you on your next Netflix binge!
ELIANA DOFT loves to write, travel, and volunteer. She is especially excited by opportunities to combine these three passions through writing about social action travel experiences. She is an avid reader, a licensed scuba diver, and a self-proclaimed cold brew connoisseur.
Mirage of Persia
Csaba Labancz filmed this video compilation when he spent three weeks in Iran visiting most of the major cities and some unknown villages up in the Elburz mountains as well as some of the most remote places in the desert. This film is an essence of a country of ancient traditions, breathtaking landscapes, truly helpful and kind people and countless historical places.
Alaska
Tim Kellner recorded this video to display his experience traveling in Alaska. In regard to his experience, Tim states “When I was a kid I would stare up at the giant stuffed grizzly bear in the Buffalo Science Museum and imagine seeing it alive and in the wild. That dream finally came true. I can't even begin to describe with words my experiences in Alaska so hopefully this video will capture just a small piece.” The music in the video is also by Tim.
Mombasa Cityscape
This video portrays the city of Mombasa, which is is a seaport city on the coast of Kenya, along the Indian Ocean. It is the country's oldest and second-largest city, with an estimated population of about 1.5 million people in 2017.
Nomads of Mongolia
Life in Western Mongolia is an adventure. Training eagles to hunt, herding yaks, and racing camels are just a few of the daily activities of the nomadic Kazakh people. Brandon Li spent a few weeks living with them and experiencing one of the most unique cultures in the world.
Dominican Republic
This video depicts shots of the Dominican Republic, a Caribbean nation that is known for its beaches, resorts and golfing. The video includes shots of the rainforest-covered karst mountains at Los Haitises National Park, one of the most stunning protected areas of the Caribbean. Additionally, Dominican cities and daily life are portrayed, such as cities like Santon Domingo and Santiago de los Caballeros.
Rohingya Testimony
The Rohingya are Muslim Indo-Aryan peoples from the Rakhine State, Myanmar. Human rights organizations have often described Rohingyas as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world. Rohingya Testimony is a film about young Rohingya women, some as young as 14, who shared with the filmmaker their stories of murder and rape. Shot in Teknaf region near the Myanmar/Bangladesh border. December 2016 & January 2017.
Filmmaker: Shafiur Rahman
VIDEO: Papa Machete in Haiti
"Papa Machete" is a glimpse into the life of Alfred Avril, an aging subsistence farmer who lives in the hills of Jacmel, Haiti. He also happens to be a master of the mysterious martial art of Haitian machete fencing, also known as Tire Machét.
Teaching about the practical and spiritual value of the machete—which is both a weapon and a farmer’s key to survival—Avril provides a bridge between his country’s traditional past and its troubled present. The film documents his proud devotion to his heritage and his struggle to keep it alive in the face of contemporary globalization.
The True Cost
'The True Cost' is a story about clothing. It's about the clothes we wear, the people who make them, and the impact the industry is having on our world. Check out the trailer for this groundbreaking documentary that pulls back the curtain on untold stories of workers along the supply chain, leading the viewer to consider: who really pays the price for our clothing?
AFGHANISTAN: No Burqas Behind Bars
In this upcoming, feature-length documentary by Nima Sarvestani, the viewer is taken inside one of the world's most restricted environments: an Afghan women's prison. Through the prisoners' stories we explore how "moral crimes" are used to control women in post-Taliban Afghanistan. And no — full burqas are not allowed inside the prison gates!
Solar Mamas — Why Poverty?
Are women better at getting out of poverty than men? The Barefoot College in India is a six-month program that brings together uneducated middle-aged women from poor communities all over the world, and trains them to become solar engineers. In this documentary from WHY POVERTY? meet Rafea, the second wife of a Bedouin husband from Jordan and watch her learn about electrical components and soldering without being able to read, write or understand English. Full documentary airs this Sunday 9 pm GMT in UK on BBC.
LEARN MORE AT WHY POVERTY